The influence of home literacy environment on reading achievement in children with reading disabilities

Past research has indicated that a significant relation exists between a child's home literacy environment and their reading-related skills. However, this relation has not been investigated among children with reading disabilities. In addition, there is limited data related to the factors that influence the home literacy environment. The relation between parent and child home literacy activities and the child's academic outcomes were investigated with a sample of 65 children with reading disabilities. The potential role of parental beliefs about education was also examined as was the relation between home literacy environment and improvement in reading during a reading intervention. To provide support for the findings, the relation between child home literacy environment and academic achievement was cross-validated with a sample of children from Canada. The results indicated that child home literacy activities were not significantly related to any of the academic outcomes while parent home literacy activities were a significant predictor of the child's passage comprehension and spelling scores. There was not a significant relation between parental beliefs and home literacy environment, and the home literacy environment did not predict reading improvement during an intervention. Surprisingly, child home literacy activities were a significant predictor of arithmetic scores for the Canadian sample. The findings suggest that parent home literacy activities are an important aspect of the home environment related to the child's academic performance. The difference in results between this study and previous investigations suggests that the relation between the home literacy environment and reading outcomes may be different for children that have difficulty with reading.