Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice

ISSN: 2630-5984

The Effects of Home Literacy Environment on Children’s Reading Comprehension Development: A Meta-analysis

Yang Dong
City University of Hong Kong, China
Sammy Xiao-Ying Wu
The Education University of Hong Kong, China
Wei-Yang Dong
The Education University of Hong Kong, China
Yi Tang
China University of Petroleum, China

Abstract

A rich home literacy environment (HLE) fosters students’ academic achievement. However, the link between HLE and children’s reading comprehension is unclear. This study examined the effects of HLE factors on children’s reading comprehension through a meta-analysis of 59 studies conducted between 1998 and 2018. Results of the meta-analysis indicated three main findings. First, the overall positive correlation between HLE and children’s reading comprehension was moderate (z = .32). Second, sampling area, type of home literacy resource and parental involvement styles did not show a significant interaction effect between each HLE factor and children’s reading comprehension. Third, parents’ involvement and literacy expectations of children had a significantly higher correlation with children’s reading comprehension than home literacy resources did. Findings of this study suggest that parental literacy activities involvement and parental literacy expectations contribute more to children's literacy knowledge enhancement.

Keywords
Home literacy environment • reading comprehension • meta-analysis.