Exploring the influence of parents’ home reading practices on emergent literacy

The purpose of this article is to explore the correlation between Namibian preprimary and Grade 1 parents’ demographic characteristics and print and digital reading practices in home environments. A quasi-experimental descriptive research design wasselected to launch this investigation in the Khomas region. Survey data documented the relationship between parents’ demographic variables and print and digital reading behaviours. The study tested the null-hypothesis (Hₒ: u1 = u2) and non-directional hypothesis (Hₒ: X1 ≠X2). The underlying assumption is that parents home reading practices positively impact children’s early language and literacy development. The findings reveal that there is no significant relationship between age, gender, education, family size, and employmentstatus, with print and digital reading behaviours that influence children’s emergent language and literacy development in home environments. In a Chi-Square test, the null hypothesis was rejected for age, gender, education, family size, and employment status, but retained and positively correlated to marital status, child reading behaviour, and parents’ book, magazine and newspaper reading behaviour. The implication is that when parents buy print materials for home reading purposes and engage their children in pleasurable reading experiences, their children are more likely to be supported at home to influence favourable language and literacy outcomes in school. The study contributes to family literacy literature and highlights the relationship between parents’ reading behaviours and children’s emergent language and literacy development. Keywords: emergent literacy, home environment, parents, print and digital reading, reading behaviours, socioeconomic status