The effects of home reading activities during preschool and Grade 4 on children's reading performance in Chinese and English in Hong Kong

Shek Kam Tse, Yu Zhu, Sau Yan Hui, Hung Wai Ng

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The English and Chinese reading proficiency of 1376 Grade 4 students in 24 Hong Kong primary schools were assessed using measures developed for the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Students' parents provided information about home reading activities (HRA) aimed at supporting their children's reading prior to them entering school ("early home reading activities", EHRA) and during Grade 4 ("home reading activities"). Results indicated that EHRA was a stronger predictor of reading performance in both Chinese and English than HRA. Moreover, 'typical' HRA such as reading books, telling stories and singing songs were found to be predictive of reading performance in both Chinese and English. In English, in addition, playing word games or character puzzles were also activities beneficial to reading performance. Together, these results provide evidence for the beneficial effects of traditional early childhood activities at home such as book reading, telling stories and singing songs for reading performance in later primary school in children's first as well as second language.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5-23
Number of pages19
JournalAustralian Journal of Education
Volume61
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Chinese
  • early childhood
  • English
  • parent involvement
  • primary school students
  • reading achievement

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