Summary

Striking differences in material resources and in the quality of the home environment, as expressed by
parents' interactions, their skills, habits, and styles, begin to define what children are taught … and these
differences are the key to understanding the beginnings of the social stratification of knowledge.

(Neuman, 2006: 32)

Most efforts to describe the nature of reading abilities and their development, for either first-language
or second-language readers, focus heavily on the cognitive aspects of reading – the mechanisms by
which an individual carries out fluent reading. In fact, much progress has been made in understanding
the cognitive aspects of reading, and reading development cannot be discussed without considering
these aspects. However, there is considerable variation across different individuals' reading abilities, and
not all of this variation is due solely to individual cognitive abilities and their development. We all learn
to read in a variety of contexts, from the time we encounter our first books or are read to as children, to
the times when we are reading advanced research material as professional adults. We learn to read
within a family unit (influenced by the educational levels, goals, expectations, and support of family
members), in various school settings (and their associated goals, resources, expectations, and
opportunities), in various classrooms (with differing curricular and instructional approaches), and by
interacting with specific teachers and student peers (and their goals, training, expectations, and abilities).

Students are also influenced by the wider social and cultural expectations of political, religious, ethnic,
economic, and social institutions. Certainly, popular culture has profound influences on children and
young adults learning to read, and neighborhood influences, both formal and informal, cannot be
overlooked.

Social factors influencing L1 literacy

poverty ~ cognitive-development outcome

socioeconomic status of the family

values and attitudes of the wider social group

education levels of the parents

interactions at home

# of literacy sources available

The development of emergent literacy

Growing cognitive development

Supportive environment

Oral and written language

experiences

observation of literacy experiences by others

Interaction with written texts

Socioeconomic Status (SES)

Low SES

less advanced

reading ability

High SES

better reading ability

Family beliefs and value

reading = fun

reading = obligation

maternal support

low SES acculturation

parents talked

more

higher IQ

vocab grow

has to be directed

to the child

Shared reading experiences

BETTER ORAL LANGUAGE SKILL

encourage practice in speaking

modeling and teaching vocab

greater print knowledge

Training and interventions for early literacy development

preschool child development programs

focus on child

interaction

focus on language skills development

learning = fun

well-trained teachers

resources

promote higher cognitive engagement

Head Start

and

Even Start

short-term

long-term

difficulties: not much money

High / Scope Perry Preschool Program

Houston Parent Child Development Center Program

Yale Child Welfare Project

Researches

about

minority
-language learners in language-

majority

schools

there are not many

not all language-minority group perform similarly

there is not much generational effect

degree of identification with majority culture

student achievement ~

educational values

social expectations