Grande Germán, Amland Tonje, van Bergen Elsje, Melby-Lervåg Monica, Lervåg Arne
Department of Education, Universityof Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2025 Jul;66(7):946-955. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.14107. Epub 2025 Jan 2.
Numerous studies have investigated the associations between the home literacy environment (HLE) and children's word reading skills. However, these associations may partly reflect shared genetic factors since parents provide both the reading environment and their child's genetic predisposition to reading. Hence, the relationship between the HLE and children's reading is genetically confounded. To address this, parents' reading abilities have been suggested as a covariate, serving as a proxy for genetic transmission. The few studies that have incorporated this covariate control have made no distinction between the HLE reported by each parent or controlled for different skills in parents and children. We predicted children's reading development over time by the reading abilities of both parents as covariates and both parents' self-reported HLE as predictors.
We analyzed data from 242 unrelated children, 193 mothers, and 144 fathers. Children's word reading was assessed in Grades 1 and 3, and parents' word reading was assessed on a single occasion. Predictors of children's reading development included literacy resources and shared reading activities.
Children's reading in Grade 3 was predicted by mothers' engagement in reading activities and by literacy resources at home, even after controlling for the genetic proxy of parental reading abilities. The longitudinal rate of change from Grades 1 to 3 was not associated with the HLE or parental reading.
Our finding that parental reading skills predicted children's word reading beyond children's initial word reading underscores the importance of considering genetic confounding in research on the home environment. Beyond parental reading abilities, children's skills were predicted by literacy resources in the home and by how often mothers engage in reading activities with their children. This suggests true environmental effects.
众多研究探讨了家庭读写环境（HLE）与儿童单词阅读技能之间的关联。然而，这些关联可能部分反映了共同的遗传因素，因为父母既提供了阅读环境，也赋予了孩子阅读的遗传倾向。因此，HLE与儿童阅读之间的关系存在遗传混杂因素。为解决这一问题，有人建议将父母的阅读能力作为协变量，作为遗传传递的代理变量。少数纳入此协变量控制的研究并未区分每位父母报告的HLE，也未针对父母和孩子的不同技能进行控制。我们将父母双方的阅读能力作为协变量，父母双方自我报告的HLE作为预测变量，来预测儿童随时间的阅读发展情况。
我们分析了来自242名无亲属关系的儿童、193名母亲和144名父亲的数据。在一年级和三年级评估儿童的单词阅读情况，对父母的单词阅读情况仅进行一次评估。儿童阅读发展的预测变量包括读写资源和亲子共读活动。
即使在控制了父母阅读能力的遗传代理变量之后，三年级儿童的阅读情况仍可由母亲参与阅读活动的程度以及家中的读写资源来预测。从一年级到三年级的纵向变化率与HLE或父母阅读情况无关。
我们的研究发现，父母的阅读技能对儿童单词阅读的预测作用超出了儿童最初的单词阅读水平，这凸显了在家庭环境研究中考虑遗传混杂因素的重要性。除了父母的阅读能力外，儿童的阅读技能还可由家中的读写资源以及母亲与孩子进行阅读活动的频率来预测。这表明存在真正的环境影响。
