Comparative Study On Early Literacy Of Young Children Aged 5～6 From Different Socioeconomic Status Family

The aim of this investigation was to describe and compare the early literacy of young children from different socioeconomic status (SES) family. A sample of 157 children aged 5-6 was randomly selected from six public preschools in Shanghai. The test to assess young children's early literacy was adopted from the measure created in the multinational research project of social and cultural factors to children's literacy, and the other test tool for family socioeconomic status was adapted from the measure created by Duncan (Duncan,1961). The study examined the development of young children's early literacy by means of Descriptive Statistics; the effects of SES on their performances of the literacy using ANOVA; a stepwise Regression Analysis determined if early literacy could be predicted by specific variables of SES:mother's education, father's occupation and family income.The results indicated that the differences among children's aged 5-6 early literacy including vocabulary ability and character reading from different SES family were obvious. The differences among their writing skills were not obvious. The children from low SES family do worst on early literacy in the three groups. The children from different SES family all expressed strong desire to learn how to read and write. Mother's education factor played the most significant prediction role in children's early literacy.