Effects of Home Literacy on Children's Recall. Technical Report No. 420

A study assessed the impact of the home literacy environment on kindergartners' recall of topically familiar and unfamiliar information. Subjects, 32 kindergarten students (16 from a public school and 16 in a gifted program in a private school), were selected from a mid-sized, mid-western community. All subjects recalled two of four counter-balanced passages, completed the Slosson Subtest of Verbal Ability, and responded to interview questions which assessed their perceptions of the frequency of home literacy experiences. Subjects' parents also completed surveys which measured the frequency of home literacy experiences. Results indicated that: (1) the amount and quality of home literacy activity affected the recall of prosodic information among kindergartners; (2) children with higher verbal scores were less affected by passage unfamiliarity than were children with lower verbal scores; and (3) regardless of verbal ability, subjects who reported a high frequency of literacy activities in their homes were better able to cope with unfamiliar content than were their peers who reported a lower frequency of home literacy activity. (Four sets of data tables are included, as well as 42 references, a child's survey scale, a children's questionnaire of home reading activities, a parent home literacy survey, and a verbatim transcription of one child's recall.) (JK)