Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Maternal Education and Chinese First Graders’ Performance in Language and Literacy and Math: Role of Home Environment

  • Published:
Early Childhood Education Journal Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Research shows that maternal education influences children’s academic performance indirectly through the quality of the home environment. In this study, we tested the role of 12 variables within the home environment (e.g., eating meals together, reading for fun at home, number of children’s books, watching TV, and bedtime) to help identify those that were effected by maternal education and then in turn affected first graders’ performance in Language and Literacy and Math. We collected home environment data from 313 Chinese parents and academic performance data directly from the children’s school. From the 12 variables, path analyses identified three that were significant: the number of children’s books at home, the number of hours that the child watched TV daily, and the number of extracurricular activities. Specifically, a higher maternal education level was related to more children’s books at home and fewer hours of TV watching daily, which were related to better performance in Language and Literacy; a higher maternal education level was related to more children’s books at home and more extracurricular activities, which were then related to better performance in math. As the identified variables are all malleable, intervention strategies that make reading materials available to children at home, limit children’s exposure to excessive TV, and promote extracurricular activity involvement may benefit children’s academic performance. Interventions that focus on increasing less educated mother’s awareness of the importance of providing reading materials to children at home, regulating children’s TV time, and involving children in extracurricular activities could also be beneficial.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tony Xing Tan.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tan, T.X., Zhou, Y. & Li, G. Maternal Education and Chinese First Graders’ Performance in Language and Literacy and Math: Role of Home Environment. Early Childhood Educ J 48, 243–252 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00986-w

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00986-w

Keywords

Navigation