Literacy development in United States families: A multi-level analysis of the effects of maternal literacy, maternal schooling, family income, and home literacy supports on children's growth in reading.

摘要

This thesis presents a secondary analysis of data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (C-NLSY), a federally funded study of U.S. mothers and children. Using data from an analytic sample of 1,537 children and their 677 mothers, multi-level modeling is used to analyze longitudinal data on children's literacy development and the literacy supports available in their home environments. The sample overrepresents mothers who had their children as teenagers or young adults. The thesis addresses four set of research questions: (1) What are the patterns of literacy development amongst U.S. children? How much variation is there within and across families? Are there differences in the estimated average trajectories of children in White, African-American, and Latino families? (2) Do maternal literacy, maternal schooling, and family income predict children's rates of growth in reading? To what extent do these variables explain differences between the average trajectories of White, African-American, and Latino children? (3) How do mothers change their provision of literacy support as their children age? Do maternal literacy, maternal schooling, and family income predict the level of literacy support that children receive at home? (4) Does the level of literacy support that children receive at home predict their rates of growth in reading? The results suggest that the majority of U.S. children make substantial progress in reading during the primary school years, but there is wide variation within and across families in the rate at which children acquire reading and in their achieved adolescent reading abilities. The results also suggest that African-American and Latino children show growth rates in reading that are, on average, slower than the rates of White children. Maternal literacy, maternal schooling, and family income are positively associated with children's developmental trajectories, and these variables explain some of the differences between the trajectories of White, African-American, and Latino children. Furthermore, maternal variables and ethnic group predict the amount of literacy support that children receive at home. The amount of home literacy support children receive is positively but weakly associated with reading trajectories, controlling for maternal literacy and schooling and family income.