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Early Education and Development

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Home Literacy and Chinese Reading in

Hong Kong Children
Jasmine Yuet-Han Lau & Catherine McBride-Chang
Published online: 08 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Jasmine Yuet-Han Lau & Catherine McBride-Chang (2005) Home Literacy
and Chinese Reading in Hong Kong Children, Early Education and Development, 16:1, 5-22, DOI:
10.1207/s15566935eed1601_1

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 Early Education & Development
Volume 16, Number 1, January 2005
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Home Literacy and Chinese Reading in Hong Kong Children

Jasmine Yuet-Han Lau

Catherine McBride-Chang

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Measures of Chinese character recognition, vocabulary, and interest in reading

were administered to 92 second grade children in Hong Kong, while questionnaires
on parental literacy practices were administered to their parents. In a hierarchical
regression equation, maternal education, children’s age and vocabulary skill
predicted 18% of the variance in reading, while home literacy practices and
children’s literacy self-efficacy predicted an additional unique 19% of the variance
in Chinese reading skill. Results underscore the importance of some early home
literacy practices for reading achievement, even among children who are already
receiving formal literacy instruction.

Correspondences regarding this manuscript should be addressed to Catherine McBride-Chang, Department

of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong (Phone: 852-2609-6576; Fax:
852-2603-5019; e-mail: cmcbride@psy.cuhk.edu.hk). This research was supported by RGC Grant No. 4325/
01 from the Hong Kong government.
 6 Lau & McBride-Chang

Home Literacy and Chinese Reading in Hong Kong Children

Evidence suggests that an encouraging home-literacy environment has a positive
relationship with early literacy. For example, researchers have advocated joint parent-
preschooler book reading, believing it to be beneficial for preparing children for formal
reading instruction (Adams, 1990; DeBaryshe, 1993; Teale; 1986; Wells, 1985b). Across
cultures, there are clear differences in the languages and scripts children learn as well as in
the ages at which they start learning formal reading and writing skills. Whitehurst and Lonigan
(1998) noted that the majority of research studies on emergent literacy have been conducted
with English-speaking children learning an alphabetic writing system. Hence, they questioned
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the applicability of the concepts of emergent literacy for children learning writing systems
or languages other than English.
In the present study, we examined home background in relation to word recognition
skills in Hong Kong culture. Research on the association between home-literacy practices
and early Chinese literacy is limited. In contrast to alphabetic orthographies, the primary
unit of Chinese is the character (Chen, 1996). The Chinese orthography may make it more
difficult for children to acquire reading in Chinese as compared to English (Li & Rao, 2000).
Hong Kong children speak Cantonese, rather than Mandarin (Putonghua), which is taught in
schools in most other Chinese societies. Mastering reading in Cantonese is particularly
challenging for children because the written and spoken forms of Chinese are mismatched.
While Hong Kong students speak Cantonese, they learn to read formal Chinese. The lexical
and syntactic structures of written Chinese are Mandarin-based and differ from the grammar
of Cantonese (Cheung & Ng, 2003).
In addition, there is not a systematic phonological transcription approach to learning
the pronunciation of Cantonese. Pupils have to rely on rote memorization to pronounce the
Chinese characters presented as holistic units, whereas students in China, Taiwan and
Singapore can use phonetic transcription, such as Pinyin, to learn character names by matching
them with auxiliary phonetic symbols (Cheung & Ng, 2003). Reading Chinese at home with
parents is a similar experience to that in school because the reading materials, such as story
books or children’s magazines, are in formal Chinese, Mandarin. Therefore, reading to learn
becomes a complex task for children in Hong Kong, and book reading with parents may be
particularly important. Apart from the specificity of the native language, Hong Kong children
also differ from their peers in other societies in the age at which they start receiving formal
instruction in reading and writing: They are taught to read and write Chinese at school
beginning at around age 3 (Hong Kong Education Department, 1996).
Perhaps as important as formal reading instruction for promoting literacy skills is home
literacy practice. Several studies have shown that parental support for home literacy is related
to children’s early reading achievement even for children who are going to school (Hewison
& Tizard, 1980; Snow, Barnes, Chandler, Goodman, & Hemphill, 1991). As Scarborough
and Dobrich (1994b) suggested, ‘reading to or with children once they have begun to read
and write may be a more powerful way of fostering literacy development than reading to
preliterate children is’ (p.346). This assertion is based on the relatively strong association of
parental support with reading achievement in primary school as compared to preschool
children (Hewison & Tizard, 1980; Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994a; Snow et el., 1991).
Indeed, as demonstrated by Sénéchal and colleagues (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Sénéchal,
 Home Literacy and Chinese 7

LeFevre, Thomas, & Darley, 1998), different aspects of home literacy support, including
direct teaching of reading-related skills and general stimulation of verbal skills, are
distinguishable. These appear to build upon one another, fostering reading skills both
indirectly and directly by middle primary school in alphabetic readers.
Thus, western findings generally show that the linkage between reading to preschoolers
and the acquisition of literacy is moderate, weaker than most educators would expect
(Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994a). However, a modest increase in early literacy skills due to
shared reading with parents may be magnified substantially in reading achievement during
later school years (Lonigan, 1994). Given that the preschool years end relatively early in
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Hong Kong children, meaningful insights might be obtained from studying book reading
development in relation to book reading at home in Hong Kong children who have been
taught reading skills formally, earlier than their age-mates in other places.
Shared book reading may be important in stimulating children’s verbal skills in various
aspects. Parents can provide interactive reading sessions to children in different ways such
as asking questions and initiating discussions related to the reading materials to promote
verbal interaction with children (Morrow & Smith, 1990). Encouraging children’s active
responding rather than receptive listening could enhance the quality of parents’ reading
session (Baker, 1996; Ruddell & Ruddell, 1994; Scarborough, Dobrich, & Hager, 1991;
Snow, 1983). In the present study, we explored the extent to which parents’ self-reports of
interactive reading with their children was associated with better reading in their children.
Another important element of home literacy practices is the materials available for
parents’ book reading to children. Early readers typically grow up in home environments in
which ready access to books is ensured (Applebee, Langer, & Mullis, 1988; Morrow, 1983).
Literacy resources are necessary for parents to provide quality reading to children. A print-
rich home environment positively correlates with children’s reading achievement (Clark,
1976). Exposure to print can also uniquely predict children’s reading development
(Cipielewski & Stanovich, 1992; McBride-Chang, Manis, Seidenberg, Custodio, & Doi,
1993; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002).
The impact of parental literacy practices on children’s word reading development could
also be diminished or magnified by other factors not directly controlled by parents. One
important factor is how receptive a child is towards literacy activities. Children’s interest in
literacy serves as a good indicator of the degree to which they react positively towards home
literacy practices. Positive associations between children’s interest in literacy and literacy
skills have been found in several studies (Crain-Thoreson & Dale, 1992; Durkin, 1966;
Mason, 1980; Scarborough et al., 1991; Thomas, 1984; Wells, 1985a, 1985b, 1986).
Scarborough and Dobrich (1994a), in their literature review, found that measures of children’s
interest in literacy had a higher correlation with literacy skills than that of frequency of joint
reading. This echoed the results of another study that indicated that preschoolers’ interest in
reading and willingness to read books independently predicted greater reading achievement
at second grade than did the amount of parent-child reading (Scarborough et al., 1991).
Crain-Thoreson and Dale (1992) also reported that children’s literacy interest correlated
with frequency of shared reading.
In various studies (Scarborough et al., 1991; Sénéchal et al., 1996; Sénéchal, LeFevre,
Thomas, & Daley, 1998), most measures of children’s literacy interest are not direct measures
 8 Lau & McBride-Chang

with children but parental reports or observations of children’s interest in literacy-related

activities. However, Frijters, Barron and Brunello (2000) had tried to minimize parental
report bias in their study by asking about children’s feeling about literacy-related activities
directly; the reliability of their measure of interest in literacy was .67. In the present study,
following Frijter et al. (2000), children’s literacy interest was taken into account to examine
its relationship with home literacy practices and early word reading development.
Some important family differences might also indirectly influence reading development
of children in early grades. One of the factors is level of maternal education. Low maternal
education has been associated with low reading performance in a large sample of American
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third-graders (Rauh, Parker, & Garfinkel, 2003). In addition, mothers with relatively high
levels of education tend to ask more stimulating questions during children’s reading activity
than do mothers with less formal education (Tracey & Young, 2002). In the present study,
the level of maternal education was controlled so that the associations among home literacy
practices, literacy interest and word reading development apart from effects of maternal
education level could be examined.
Because previous research on the association between home literacy and early reading
development has mainly focused on preschoolers learning English or other alphabetic systems,
the importance of home literacy for children learning Chinese, where teaching of reading
and writing begins earlier during pre-primary periods, remains unclear. Thus, the present
study was conducted to investigate the extent to which the home literacy practices would
predict Chinese word reading development of young school-age children.
In a recent study on Chinese word reading development of school-age children by Shu,
Li, Anderson, Ku and Yue (2002), developmental differences were found between Beijing
elementary school first and fourth graders. All parameters of the home-literacy environment
(parent’s education level, literacy resources, parent-child literacy related activities and child
literacy-related activities) were significantly related to the children’s reading proficiency for
the fourth graders (Shu et al., 2002). For the first graders, nearly all parameters, except
children’s literacy-related activities, significantly correlated with their reading proficiency.
Indeed, Shu et al. (2002) speculated that this result was attributable to the fact that most
children did not have the ability to read and write independently at the beginning of first
grade. As a result, the home literacy environment predicted more variance of children’s
reading for fourth graders than for first graders (Shu et al., 2002). Without controlling for
other factors and using the home literacy environment as the only predictor, Shu et al. (2002)
found that 10.3% and 17.5% of variance in reading proficiency were explained for the first
graders and the fourth graders respectively.
Frijters et al. (2000) used different regression equations to examine the influence of
home literacy and literacy interest on kindergarten prereaders’ early written language skill
and oral vocabulary in English. They controlled for phonological awareness, oral receptive
vocabulary and home literacy and found that literacy interest predicted 3% of variance in
letter-name and letter-sound knowledge. Home literacy predicted 12% of variance in letter-
name and letter-sound knowledge after literacy interest had been controlled. The present
study focused on the unique variance in Chinese word reading predicted by home literacy
practices, controlling for children’s age, maternal education and vocabulary ability, a proxy
for general language skills.
 Home Literacy and Chinese 9

In a comprehensive longitudinal study following children from kindergarten and

first grade through third grade (Sénéchal et al., 1998; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002), researchers
demonstrated different aspects of children’s home experiences that may ultimately affect
children’s reading, at least in third grade. In particular, parent-child shared book reading
and parents’ explicit teaching of literacy skills to kindergarten children, though uncorrelated
with one another, were predictive of reading in different ways. Shared book reading tended
to foster children’s vocabulary and listening comprehension abilities; these early language
skills were predictive of reading comprehension skills at grade three. In contrast, parents’
reports of teaching children to read and write were directly associated with children’s early
literacy skills and subsequent reading in grade three.
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Given that the Hong Kong children included in this study began formal literacy instruction
earlier than their Western counterparts represented in previous studies (Sénéchal et al., 1998;
Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002), we examined how different types of reported home experiences
might be associated with word recognition skills in Hong Kong second graders. Questions
such as how often children are read to and how they are read to might broadly be described
as shared book reading experiences, whereas questions such as how often parents teach
reading and writing skills might broadly be described as explicit teaching of literacy skills.
However, because language and literacy skills are strongly related in primary school (Sénéchal
& LeFevre, 2002), we were not sure of the extent to which both aspects of the home literacy
environment might be represented in our survey data.
Method
Participants
The sample included 92 second-graders (P2) from three primary schools in Hong Kong,
together with their parents; of them 29 and 42 came from two primary schools in Kowloon
and 21 came from another primary school in New Territories. Across schools, there were 42
girls and 50 boys who participated in this study. The mean age for P2 children was 92.89
months (SD = 4.12). Out of 92 children who completed the testing, only 83 parents returned
the parental questionnaires. A majority of the parental questionnaires was filled out by the
mothers (72.3%). Second-graders were sampled to examine the influence of home literacy
environment on young children who had started to receive formal instruction in reading and
writing.
Materials and Procedure
Character recognition test. The word reading ability of each child was assessed using
two Chinese character recognition tasks. In the first task, a list of 27 single Chinese characters
and 34 two-character words with increasing difficulty was used. This list has been used
successfully among Hong Kong Chinese kindergartners (Ho & Bryant, 1997; McBride-
Chang & Ho, 2000). If children progressed beyond this list, they were given another list of
an additional 150 two-character items adapted from the Hong Kong Test of Specific Learning
Difficulties in Reading and Writing (HKT-SpLD) (Ho, Chan, Tsang & Lee, 2000) with high
reliability (α = .97). The test was administered to the child one-to-one. All Chinese characters
were printed on laminated A4 size cards for the child to read. If the child failed to read aloud
15 consecutive items, the reading task was terminated. The total number of Chinese characters
recognized on the two lists served as a total score of reading ability.
Parental questionnaire. The items on the parental questionnaire were adapted from the
Home Literacy Environment Index (HLEI) (Li & Rao, 2000). It was distributed to each
 10 Lau & McBride-Chang

child for him or her to bring home for one of his or her parents to fill in and then return to his
or her class teacher after it was done. The questionnaire is divided into two major sections.
The first section includes 12 questions on basic information such as the educational level
and occupation of the parent as well as the language used for communicating with the child
at home, etc. The second section includes 15 questions mainly on home literacy practices. In
this second section, questions include categories related to (a) parent-child reading activities
such as the frequency of book reading, (b) a retrospective report of reading frequency with
five stages from 0-1 year old up to five years old, (c) the literacy resources available such as
the number of books owned by children and frequency of buying books, (d) duration of
learning to read and write at home. The questions are on a Likert scale.
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Children’s questionnaire on interest in reading. A questionnaire of 14 items was

administered to each child one-to-one at each child’s school (See Appendix). We created
this questionnaire based on our own ideas about contexts of reading and enjoyment of reading.
We included one item related to educational TV watching, and the rest of the items were
related to purposes of reading or literacy activities. A room was provided for 2 to 4 test
administrators to administer the questionnaire simultaneously each to a given child. Each
child was shown a picture with 4 different faces, namely very unhappy, unhappy, happy and
very happy. The child was then asked to differentiate those 4 faces. Each child was asked to
point to one facial expression on the picture to show their happiness or unhappiness in
literacy-related episodes. The test administrator then recorded the ratings according to a 4-
point Likert scale to measure the child’s interest in and the enjoyment of the reading episodes.
The reliability of the questionnaire was .72.
Vocabulary test. Each child’s vocabulary skills were assessed with a set of 32 items.
This test was also administered one-to-one to the child. The vocabulary was selected from
the Hong Kong Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Vocabulary subtest (HK-WISC;
Psychological Corporation, 1981). This is a Cantonese version of the Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children – Revised Vocabulary subtest (WISC-R; Wechsler, 1974) with high
reliability, α = .77. For each vocabulary item, each child was asked the question in the
format of “What is the meaning of _____?”. The administrator then rated the child’s answers
such that 2 marks were given for a correct explanation, 1 mark was given for a partially
correct explanation, and 0 marks were given for an incorrect explanation. The task was
terminated when the child gave a wrong explanation for 5 consecutive items. A composite
score was computed from all marks.
Results
To begin with, a principal component analysis on the 14 newly developed items to
measure literacy interest was done. There were 5 factors, as shown in Table 1. Because
Factor 5 included only one item pertaining to children’s interest in watching a local TV
program for children, it was excluded from further analysis. Factor 1 is related to children’s
interest in literacy skills learning. Factor 2 is related to children’s self-reported efficacy in
literacy skills. Factor 3 is related to children’s liking of going to bookstores with their mothers
or story-telling by their mothers. Factor 4 is related to children’s enjoyment of reading.
Summaries of other measures included in the present study are given in Tables 2 and 3.
Table 2 shows frequencies of responses on the questionnaire data collected from parents. Of
the 15 items on home literacy practice in the parental questionnaire, there were 6 items
asking about the frequency of book reading by mothers to children by year from ages 0 to 5.
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Table 1.
Factor Analysis of Items on Interest Scale

Factors

Literacy Skills Literacy Skills Bookstore & Enjoyment of TV Interest

Learning Self-Efficacy Storybook Reading

Q6. Learning to read .623 .211 .229 .279 .314

Q7. Learning to writing .622 .148 .389 .223 .054
Q9. Teachers read stories .544 .034 .134 .206 .340
Q11. Learning to read is fun .835 .195 .236 .332 -.010
Q12. Learning to write is fun .865 .111 .155 .067 .000
Q5. Good at reading books .407 .630 .084 .111 .284
Q13. Compared with other kids
on learning to read .119 .869 -.086 -.017 .036
Q14. Compared with other kids
on learning to write .062 .762 .241 .242 .101
Home Literacy and Chinese

Q4. At the bookstore .233 .166 .833 .126 .002

Q10. Mother reads stories .239 -.015 .811 .152 .010
Q1. Reading books .256 .214 -.061 .796 .088
Q2. Reading books
besides homework .011 .031 .135 .349 -.711
Q3. At the library .209 .016 .346 .733 .077
Q8. Watching children’s
TV program .228 .111 .178 .439 .586
11
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12

Table 2.
Frequency Distribution of Parental Questionnaire Items on Home Literacy

Variables Response Choices

No. of Chinese Books > 50 30 - 50 10 -29 < 10 None Missing
23% 13% 27% 16% 10% 11%
Frequency of buying new books Weekly Monthly Twice a year Once a year Never Missing
20% 34% 15% 5% 12% 14%
Frequency of reading at age 4 > Once Once a Once a Once a
a day day week month Rarely Never Missing
5% 14% 26% 9% 8% 37% 1%
The level of maternal education Master Degree F.6-7 F.5 F.3-4 P6 Missing
Lau & McBride-Chang

1% 10% 8% 35% 15% 20% 12%

Attracting attention by asking Yes No Missing

questions related to story content 44% 55% 1%
 Home Literacy and Chinese 13

A principal component analysis, done on these 6 items for data reduction, confirmed that
these items belong to a single factor, called the Reading Frequency Factor, for later analysis.
Table 2 shows only the reported frequency of reading by parents to children at age 4 as an
example of these frequency data, but subsequent tables included only this factor score as a
better representation of families’ overall frequency of reading with children in early childhood.
The means and standard deviations for other measures are presented in Table 3. On
average, primary 2 students could recognize around 145 Chinese words in the Chinese
Character Recognition Test and could explain the meaning of around 15 words on the
Vocabulary subtest, with considerable variability. Because boys and girls did not differ on
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either the reading or the vocabulary tasks, data for all second-graders were analyzed together.

Table 3.
Descriptive Statistics of Study Measures on Primary 2 Students

Variables Mean Score SD Range n

Chinese word reading 144.47 22.69 88-186 92

Vocabulary test (HK-WISC) 14.99 5.51 4-31 92
Age (in months) 92.89 4.12 87-105 92

Note. HK-WISC = total score of the vocabulary elaboration test.

We then examined the associations of all items on the home literacy practice of the
parental questionnaire, Literacy Interest Factors (from children) 1-4, and maternal education
with reading and vocabulary knowledge. Because age was correlated with some of the
items, age was statistically controlled in these analyses, shown in Table 4. In this table,
Chinese word reading correlated with five items, namely vocabulary, the number of Chinese
books owned by the child, Reading Frequency Factor, asking questions related to story
content during reading and Literacy Skills Self-Efficacy Factor. We also included the
associations of all items with the vocabulary measure, following Sénéchal and colleagues
(Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Sénéchal et al., 1998) to test the extent to which some items
might be particularly strongly associated with verbal skills apart from reading itself. More
of the items were significantly correlated with reading itself than with vocabulary knowledge.
However, maternal education and the Bookstore and Storybook Interest Factor were
significantly associated with vocabulary skills but not with reading itself.
To examine the extent to which self-reported home literacy practices and children’s
literacy interest would uniquely predict reading performance, we carried out a hierarchical
regression analysis. In step 1, children’s age and vocabulary knowledge, as well as mothers’
education levels were entered to predict 18% of the variance in character recognition. At
step 2, the other 4 items correlated with Chinese word reading together contributed a significant
and unique 19% of additional variance, for a total of 37% of the variance in character
recognition explained. Table 5 shows the final beta weights from this analysis. Final beta
weights for the vocabulary measure, children’s literacy self-efficacy, and number of Chinese
books at home were significant in this equation.
 14 Lau & McBride-Chang

Table 4.
Inter-correlations Controlling for Age among Variables

CWR Voc

Chinese Word reading (CWR) —

Vocabulary test (HK-WISC) (Voc) .45** .—
Interest factor 1: Literacy skills learning -.03 -.02
Interest factor 2: Literacy skills self-efficacy .26* .17
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Interest factor 3: Bookstore and storybook interest .14 .27*

Interest factor 4: Enjoyment of reading .02 -.10
Maternal education .19 .28*
No. of books .45** .41**
Frequency of buying books .11 .17
Current frequency of reading .15 .16
Reading frequency factor (ages 1-6) .41** .26
Duration of reading -.05 -.04
Points to illustrations .10 -.22
Ask questions .36** .20
Guess the story .17 .23
Duration of teaching to read .21 .10
Duration of teaching to write .06 .08

* p < .05, ** p < .01

Table 5.
Final Standardized Beta Weights of All Variables Predicting
Children’s Chinese Character Recognition

Variables β t-value

F (7, 71) = 5.93, p = .000

Maternal education level -0.01 -0.07
Children’s age 0.03 0.26
Vocabulary subtest 0.26 2.55*
Interest factor 2: Literacy skills self-efficacy 0.21 2.14*
No. of Chinese books 0.32 2.44*
Reading frequency factor 0.05 0.33
Ask Questions 0.14 1.26

* p < .05, ** p < .01

 Home Literacy and Chinese 15

Discussion
Our findings revealed that the relationship between home literacy practices and word
reading development persists well into the second grade in Hong Kong children. After
controlling for age and vocabulary, some home literacy practices still uniquely predicted a
substantial amount of variance in word reading development. This finding underscores the
importance of parent-child interaction as found previously in studies of Western families
(Bus, van Ijzendoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995; Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994a; Sénéchal et al.,
1998; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).
The relationship between individual measures of home literacy and reading development
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was actually fairly strong, more than the usually modest relations reported in the literature
(Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994a). The unique variance of Chinese reading predicted by
some home literacy practices might be explained by the different learning approaches of
different orthographies. The “look and say” approach used to teach Hong Kong students
reading Chinese (Hanley, Tzeng, & Huang, 1999; Holm & Dodd, 1996, Huang & Hanley,
1995) means that students have to learn Chinese characters one by one by rote memorization.
Therefore, the additional literacy opportunities at home might promote additional characters
learning. In contrast, the phonemic approach used to teach students English words (Adams,
1990) means that students who know the basic letter-sound correspondences might easily
read new words even without the extra boost at home.
Home environment in relation to literacy may imply different literacy opportunities
such as joint involvement of parent and child in literacy activities like book reading, the
availability of literacy resources, e.g. books, and modeling of parents’ involvement in literacy
activities (Anderson & Strokes, 1984; Purcell-Gates, 1996). In our study, some aspects of
home literacy practices are noteworthy. First, the frequency factor of parents’ book reading
when the child was under 6 years old correlated with Chinese word reading. However, this
current year’s frequency of parent’s book reading was not significantly correlated with Chinese
word reading. The average age of the children in this study was almost 8 years old. There
might be different possibilities for this outcome. For example, the benefits of book reading
during children’s early ages might lay the foundation for individual differences in later word
reading development. Frequency of leisure reading is well recognized as predicting reading
achievement (Baker, Dreher, & Guthrie, 2000; Snow et al., 1998). In addition, early childhood
parent-child reading is positively associated with subsequent reading skills, presumably
because such early language experiences encourage children’s later interests in reading
activities (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002).
Second, the number of books owned by children significantly correlated with children’s
word reading. The availability of books might serve as an important literacy resource for
parents to engage in quality reading with their children. Research findings showed that a
greater access to a variety of books was related to more enjoyable reading interactions between
parents and children (Baker, Mackler, Sonnenschein, & Serpell, 2001). The number of books
might also indicate parents’ emphasis on book reading activities.
Third, the significant correlation between asking questions related to the content of the
story and word reading might suggest that how parents read to children was as important as
how frequently parents read to children. Many researchers believe that the verbal interactions
that accompany parent-child reading promote reading development (Baker et al., 2001).
 16 Lau & McBride-Chang

However, it is not clear what kind of interactive reading would be most desirable. Dialogic
reading that promotes the use of scaffolding techniques to encourage active participation of
children during parent-child reading session might be one of the options. Western studies
have reported successful intervention using this approach (Hargrave & Sénéchal, 2000;
Huebner, 2000; Valdez-Menchaca & Whitehurst, 1992; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998;
Whitehurst, Falco, Lonigan, Fischel, DeBaryshe, Valdez-Menchaca, & Caulfield, 1988;
Whitehurst, Arnold, Epstein, Angell, Smith, & Fischel, 1994). This technique has also been
proven successful in promoting reading ability in a group of Chinese preschoolers (Chow &
McBride-Chang, 2003). Some have hypothesized that the talk that goes beyond the story
itself to extend children’s knowledge and thinking might predict subsequent reading
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comprehension (Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994a; Snow et el., 1998) because this kind of
talk makes parent-child reading more stimulating and enjoyable, in turn fostering motivation
for further reading (Baker et al., 2001). Our measure of asking questions was admittedly a
crude one and was not a significant unique final predictor of reading. However, we remain
intrigued by the strong correlation of this categorical variable with reading performance and
would like to follow up on this finding in future research. In particular, it might be interesting
to get detailed information on how parents approach interactive reading themselves with a
behavioral measure.
Ours is one of the few studies to tap children’s perceived interest in reading directly. In
previous studies, parent-child reading had a significant positive influence on measure of
attitudes toward reading (Rowe, 1991) and promoted positive views about reading through
pleasurable social interactions (Baker, Scher, & Mackler, 1997; Bus & van Ijzendoorn, 1995).
In the present study, only children’s literacy self-efficacy predicted actual reading skill. This
finding suggests that the more competent children felt in learning to read and write, the
better they actually performed. Clearly, we cannot establish a causal mechanism for this
association, but it is an intriguing one to follow up on in future studies.
There were several limitations in the present study. First, the interplay of the relationships
of word reading achievement, home literacy practices and children’s liking of going to
bookstores with their mothers or story-telling by their mothers is unclear. Book reading
frequency before 6 years old might play a role in the pathway that leads to later reading
achievement. However, causal associations among these cannot be determined in this study.
In addition, Hong Kong children receive formal teaching to read and write at age 3.
This early training of literacy might affect the benefits of home literacy practices. In this
study, we only know that there was no association between this year’s frequency of book
reading at home and word reading performance when these children were aged 8. It would
be interesting to examine the developmental differences between children at a different school
age. The model provided by Sénéchal and Lefevre (2002), in which preschool home reading
indirectly contributes to subsequent literacy skills through enhanced verbal skills, and direct
teaching of literacy skills also directly predicts reading in primary school children in the
West, is likely a useful one to explore in Chinese cultures as well. The extent to which
home literacy experience, verbal skills, and reading-related abilities change with development
is an issue for future research. It would be particularly useful to see how the relationship
between home literacy practices and reading development might be altered by school
experience in Chinese societies.
 Home Literacy and Chinese 17

Despite these remaining issues, the present study has demonstrated three important
aspects of home literacy practices for Hong Kong children. First, some home literacy practices
uniquely contribute to individual differences in young school-age children’s word reading
ability even after controlling for their vocabulary knowledge and age as well as mother’s
education. Second, the availability of books and asking questions during story-telling might
be beneficial for book reading interaction. Third, children’s literacy self-efficacy is potentially
a useful and important predictor of reading performance in primary school.
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Appendix.
Children’s Questionnaire on Interest in Reading

Which of the faces stands for you when…

Factor 4 1. you read books?
Factor 4 2. you read books besides homework?
Factor 4 3. you are at the library?
Factor 3 4. you are at the bookstore?
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Factor 2 5. you feel you are good at reading books?

Factor 1 6. you are learning to read?
Factor 1 7. you are learning to write?
Factor 5 8. you are watching the NET kids
(a local children’s TV program)?
Factor 1 9. teachers read stories to you?
Factor 3 10. mother reads stories to you?
Factor 1 11. you are enjoying learning to read
Factor 1 12. you are enjoying learning to write
Factor 2 13. you compare yourself with other kids in learning to read?
Factor 2 14. you compare yourself with other kids in learning to write?