Although the home literacy environment (HLE) is a critical determinant of children’s language and literacy development, its assessment has been largely influenced by evidence from high-income contexts. Drawing on 20 studies, this systematic review examines the conceptualization and evaluation of the HLE in low- and lower-middle-income (LLMI) countries, focusing on assessment components, indicators, and recurring methodological limitations. It reveals that assessment practices have been significantly inconsistent and have heavily relied on instruments adapted from high-income settings, often with limited validation. Material resources and shared reading activities tend to be privileged, focusing less on parental beliefs, values, and emotional or motivational dimensions. Commonly used indicators also rely on assumptions about scale and variability that may not hold in LLMI settings. Based on the findings, several key directions for future research are discussed with regard to contextually grounded and psychometrically robust HLE assessment in resource-restricted contexts.
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Rashid et al. (2026) studied this question.