How Does Toddlers’ Engagement in Literacy Activities Influence Their Language Abilities?

The most intensive period of language development is during the first years of life, during which the brain is developing rapidly. Research has shown that children from disadvantaged households who received high-quality stimulation at a young age grew into adults who earned an average of 25% more than those who did not receive these interventions. In addition, it has been suggested that children who show a greater interest in literacy-related activities and voluntarily engage in them are likely to become better readers than children with less interest in literacy. These children’s factors, along with their engagement in literacy activities, are important components in children’s early literacy experiences and may affect their early language development. In this study, we examined associations among maternal education, home literacy environment (HLE), children’s interest and engagement in literacy activities, and language development of 44 toddlers aged between 20 and 36 months. Overall, results showed that only children’s engagement in literacy activities was related to vocabulary and morphosyntactic skills, whereas maternal education, HLE, and children’s interests were not. These results suggest that taking advantage of individual children’s interests by planning activities in which children are fully engaged, may be effective strategies for promoting children’s oral language development.

Students’ Environmental Literacy: Environment Education Assisted E-Booklet on Biodiversity Gegas Dam Indonesia Context

Indonesia is one of the world's mega biodiversity needs to be preserved, due to estimated the extinction rate of one species is estimated at 10,000 times per year caused by human activity. Various efforts have been made by various sectors to preserve the environment, including in education through Environmental Education (EE). This research aim to implement Environmental Literacy (EL) domain in Biodiversity learning assisted validated e-booklet (CVR0,67) to enhance student knowledge, cognitive skills (identification of issues, analysis of issues, and action plans), attitude (verbal commitment, environmental sensitivity, and feelings towards the environment), and responsible behavior towards the environment. The EL domains related to real context of biodiversity in Gegas Dam is implemented in order to avoid the availability of disconnecting youth generation with their native biodiversity. Data analysis and identification of diversity- diversity index, homogeneity, dominance and correlation among chemical-physical environmental factors- are presented in an e-booklet to strengthen students' knowledge and cognitive skills, while attitude and responsibility behavior are strengthened by presenting local, national and global environmental issues. Through one group pre-posttest design, 30 high school students in South Sumatra as youth generation were involved in this research. Students’ EL is measured by 66 questions EL domain. The results showed that students' verbal commitment got the highest n-gain score (0.62 medium), while environmental sensitivity was the smallest (0.2 low). These results indicate that verbally students or youth generation already know how to conserve the environment. Cultivation of environmental conservation habits could be continuously improved by realizing their verbal ideas.

Home literacy environment mediates the relationship between socioeconomic status and white matter structure in infants

The home literacy environment (HLE) in infancy has been associated with subsequent pre-literacy skill development and HLE at pre-school age has been shown to correlate with white matter organization in tracts that subserve pre-reading and reading skills. Furthermore, childhood socioeconomic status (SES) has been linked with both HLE and white matter organization. It is also important to understand whether the relationships between environmental factors such as HLE and SES and white matter organization can be detected as early as infancy, as this period is characterized by rapid brain development that may make white matter pathways particularly susceptible to these early experiences. Here, we hypothesized (1) an association between HLE and white matter organization in pre-reading and reading-related tracts in infants, and (2) that this association mediates a link between SES and white matter organization. To test these hypotheses, infants (mean age: 9.2 +/- 2.5 months, N = 18) underwent diffusion-weighted imaging MRI during natural sleep. Fractional anisotropy (FA) was estimated from the left superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) and left arcuate fasciculus using the automated fiber-tract quantification method. HLE was measured with the Reading subscale of the StimQ and SES was measured with years of maternal education. Self-reported maternal reading ability was also quantified and applied to all statistical models to control for confounding genetic effects. The Reading subscale of the StimQ positively related to FA in left SLF and mediated the association between maternal education and FA in the left SLF. Taken together, these findings underscore the importance of considering HLE from the start of life and may inform novel prevention and intervention strategies targeted at low-SES families to support developing infants during a period of heightened brain plasticity.

Sociálne aspekty čitateľskej gramotnosti s akcentom na dieťa zo sociálne znevýhodňujúceho prostredia na Slovensku

Reading literacy as functional literacy, i.e. the ability to understand and use written text, is alarming for students from disadvantaged backgrounds in Slovakia. In relation to children from less favourable backgrounds, the Slovak education system has long been unable to adequately compensate for educational inequalities determined by social origin. The most important stimuli affect children before they enter primary school. The study presents selected research on supporting child readers within the context of the family, based mainly on foreign sources, where this research has a rich tradition. Factors in the so-called home literacy environment, especially reading together or so-called dialogic reading of a parent with a child, as well as the size of the family library, were identified as particularly important. At the end of the paper, the possibilities of socio-pedagogical intervention are outlined.