Oral language and reading abilities of f

International Journal of Behavioral Development 2002, 26 (4), 334–344 # 2002 T he International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/01650254.html DOI: 10.1080/01650250143000229 Oral language and reading abilities of �rst-grade Peruvian children: Associations with child and family factors Dina C Castro, Bobbie B Lubker, Donna M Bryant, and Martie Skinner The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA T his study investigated the relationship between selected child and family demographic characteristic s (child age, child sex, child birth order, maternal education, and parent language status), family processes (parent-to-child reading at home, and parent expectations about child’s educational attainment), and preschool experience with poor Peruvian �rst-grade children’s oral language and reading abilities, and examined whether those factors help to explain differences among children living in poverty First-grade students (N ˆ 137) of �ve schools in a poor neighbourhood of Lima, Peru participated in the study Children were given picture vocabulary, verbal analogies, letterword identi�cation, and reading comprehension tests Information about the children and their families was gathered through parent interviews Children whose parents had higher expectations obtained higher scores on picture vocabulary, verbal analogies, letter-word identi�cation and reading comprehension Children who attended private and public preschools obtained higher scores in letter-word identi�cation than those who did not attend preschool These �ndings support previous researc h on the relevance of family beliefs, above and beyond sociodemographic variables, as contributors to children’s oral language and reading, and provide some evidence of the bene�ts of preschool among children living in poverty Future research is recommended to identify the speci�c strategies used by low-income Peruvian parents with high expectations to support their children’s language and reading; and to determine the relationships between type and quality in Peruvian preschool programmes, and programme practices that may differentially affect children’s language and reading skills Introduction Extensive poverty is a major barrier for child developmen t and education in Peru Sixty per cent of Peruvian children, from birth to 17 years of age, live in poverty (Webb & Ferna´ndez Baca, 1999) In 1993 , only 46% of children 12 years of age and younger lived in homes that had basic living amenities (potable water, sewer, and electricity) (Webb & Ferna´ndez Baca, 1995) Economic crises and political violence accelerated rural-tourban migration during recent decades Currently, 72% of Peruvians live in urban areas Typically, migrants start new communities around the cities called ‘‘asentamientos humanos’’, where they live in extreme poverty Peruvian school systems are challenged to serve this population The percentage of school enrolment for Peruvian children 6–11 years of age has been increasing; in 1998 it was 93% However, the percentage of grade retention in �rst grade has been around 30% for many years Failure in learning to read and write was the main reason to retain children in �rst grade In 1995 , as part of the implementation of the Articulation of Preschool and Primary Education Programme, Correspondence should be addressed to Dina C Castro, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 105 Smith Level Rd., CB# 8180, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-81 80, USA (E-mail: Dina_Castro@ unc.edu) This study is based on Dina C Castro’s doctoral dissertation The authors would like to thank Drs Margaret Burchinal, and Kinnard Peruvian governmental of�cials decided that all �rst-grade students in public education would be promoted to second grade That gave them another year to complete their reading and writing learning processes T his decision is re�ected in the country’s educational statistics as a notable decrease in grade retention In 1998 , grade retention in second grade was 17% (Webb & Ferna´ndez Baca, 1999) Considering that these are national data, it is possible that these percentages may be higher in poor urban and rural areas Poor urban children from the asentamientos humanos in Peru are at increased risk for school failure, which is manifest in the early grades by dif�culties in developin g oral language, reading, and writing abilities Research in developing countries faces methodological challenges mainly related to the measurement instruments used The majority of psychoeducational instruments available in Peru are translations from instruments developed in the USA and other industrialised countries The present study is not exempted from these challenges, and is an effort to generate sound research data that truly re�ect the characteristics of Peruvian children and families White for their advice on an earlier version of this manuscript, Jose´ Miguel Sandoval for his assistance in data management and analysis, Edith Noriega for her assistance in collecting data, and especially the children, parents, school administrators and teachers in Lima, Peru for their kind participation in this study INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT , 2002, 26 (4), 334–344 Language development of children reared in poverty Several investigators have shown that the compounding of risk conditions in poverty environments has negative in�uences on children’s physical, mental, and social developmen t (e.g., Margolis, Greenberg, & Keyes, 1992; Ricciuti & Scarr, 1990; Sameroff, Seifer, Barocas, Zax, & Greenspan, 1987; Wasik, Ramey, Bryant, & Sparling, 1990) ‘‘T he chronic stress and diminished material and psychological resources that often characterize poverty environments combine in synergistic fashion to the detriment of young children’’ (Bradley et al., 1994 , p 347) Speci�cally, the language developmen t of children living in poverty is below what is expected for their chronological age (Montenegro, 1992) Social class differences have been found in children’s oral language skills (Dickinson & Snow, 1987 ) and in children’s concepts of printed language (Ferreiro & T eberosky, 1982) Evidence from research indicates that language development is associated with school achievement, especially with literacy-related skills Low level of skills in oral language during preschool years are often associated with later reading dif�culties, especially for children from low SES families (Raz & Bryant, 1990; Scarborough, 1990) Walker, Greenwood, Hart, and Carta (1994) reported the results of a 10-year longitudinal study, examining associations between early language developmen t and family SES Children’s assessments before years of age were compared with later measures of language and academic achievement in kindergarten through third grade The results showed that differences in child language before schooling, related to family SES, were predictive of children’s scores in verbal ability, receptive and spoken language, and academic achievement (reading, language expression, and math) tests from kindergarten through third grade Early childhood education as a protective factor Internationally, a large body of research has demonstrated that early childhood education can prevent early academic failure and that it has positive long-lasting effects throughout the lives of children from poor families (e.g Boocock, 1995 ; Burchinal, Campbell, Bryant, Wasik, & Ramey, 1997 ; Myers, 1992) High-quality early educational intervention (EEI) may ameliorate and prevent further deterioration and delays in children’s development, particularly for children who live in poverty (Consortium of Longitudinal Studies, 1983) During recent decades, the importance of early childhood education programmes has been increasingly recognised at academic and political levels in countries around the world (Woodill, Bernhard, & Prochner, 1992) The care and education of young children are signi�cant issues because of the increased proportions of children living in poverty and their overrepresentation in special education (Hauser-Cram, Pierson, Walker, & T ivnan, 1991) It is necessary to emphasise the preventive perspective underlying EEI as an effort to counteract the effects of poverty for children (Martin, Ramey, & Ramey, 1990) As mentioned earlier, the conditions of poverty constitute risk factors for children’s early cognitive and social developmen t that are frequently associated with later school failure (Wasik et al., 1990) High-quality, family-oriented, comprehensive EEI may serve as a primary prevention strategy, since it may ensure that these children enter school as healthy and competent learners, 335 which will in�uence their subsequent success in school, thus improving their prospects for a more productive and personally satisfying life (Bryant & Maxwell, 1997 ; Schweinhart, Barnes, & Weikart, with Barnett & Epstein, 1993) Studies on quality in early childhood care and education have demonstrated the relationships among quality indicators such as class size, adult:child ratios, and teacher education and children’s cognitive, language, and social developmen t (Burchinal, Roberts, Nabors, & Bryant, 1996 ; Burchinal et al., 2000 ; Howes, Phillips & Whitebook, 1992) Teachers who have smaller class sizes and children to adult ratios are more likely to interact positively and sensitively to the children in their classrooms (Phillipsen, Burchinal, Howes, & Cryer, 1997) Similarly, more educated teachers are more likely to have classes rated to be of higher quality (Whitebook, Howes, & Phillips, 1989) In Peru, 52% of children 3–5 years of age receive preschool education (Webb & Ferna´ndez Baca, 1999), which includes private and public preschools and nonformal preschools Private and public preschools are generally conducted by certi�ed preschool teachers who have nonprofessional teacher assistants These preschools usually have adequate buildings and appropriate equipmen t and teaching materials T he largest proportion of preschools available in poor urban and rural areas are the ‘‘PRONOEI’’, a nonformal modality of preschool developed to expand preschool coverage for children in poverty, at a lower cost to the government Nonformal preschools are conducted by paraprofessionals, who usually have no more than high school education and who are paid less than the minimum wage T hese persons participate in a short initial training programme and periodic refresher training Preschool teachers assigned by the school districts provide supervision Many of these preschools operate in inappropriate, sometimes improvised facilities, and lack equipmen t and materials Studies of preschool education in Peru and its impact on poor children’s oral language and reading have not been found Based on international literature indicating the bene�ts of preschool attendanc e and its differential effects related to type and quality of the preschool programme, in this study we hypothesised that on measures of language and reading (a) �rst graders who attended preschool will perform better than those who not, and (b) �rst graders who attended private and public preschools will perform better than those who attended nonformal preschools Family factors and child language and literacy development There are important differences among families living in poverty, some of them critical for children’s language and literacy developmen t and school success Differences among low income families may not only be related to demographic family characteristics, such as parental education or family composition, but also to family process factors such as parental beliefs and behaviours In research on child developmen t and education, considerably more attention has been given to family demographi c characteristics than to family processes when studying differences in child outcomes among children from low-income families The literature on developmen t of children in poverty and resilience shows an increase in research focusing on those family processes, such as parental educational expectations and reading practices at home, that may 336 CASTRO ET AL / LANGUAGE AND READING OF PERUVIAN CHILDREN help some disadvantaged children develop into well-functioning individuals and to succeed in school, in spite of the poverty situation in their homes (e.g., Bradley et al., 1994 ; Halle, Kurtz-Costes, & Mahoney, 1997 ; Zimmerman, & Arunkumar, 1994) Research �ndings indicate that family factors related to language and literacy developmen t differ in home environments of poor versus nonpoor young children (Bradley et al., 1994) Fewer studies have investigated differences among families within the low SES group and their relation with children’s language and reading abilities Among those studies some have focused on family process variables such as parental expectations and parent behaviours Parent expectations about their children’s educational attainment have been shown to be signi�cantly associated with children’s school achievemen t (i.e., reading and math scores) in the USA (Halle et al., 1997 ; Mau, 1997 ) and in other countries (Morgan, Shiel, Hickey, & Forde, 1995 ; Phillips, 1992) For the Peruvian population, speci�cally for poor children and families, studies on the relationships between family factors and child language and literacy developmen t are scarce One study was found that investigated family factors related to child reading and mathematics achievemen t in �rst-grade Peruvian children from indigenous Quechua-speakin g families, living in three different geographic locations Parental expectations about the child’s future work and the parental behaviours of helping with homework and teaching style were found to be positively related to �rst-graders’ scores on reading and math tests (Barber, 1988) Regarding parent behaviours, research �ndings are not consistent For example, some studies have found substantial differences in literacy-related behaviours among low-income families and those differences were strongly associated with children’s oral language skills (Payne, Whitehurst, & Angell, 1994 ; Ricciuti, White, & Fraser, 1993) Contrarily, another study found no signi�cant relationship between the amount of exposure to reading in the home and the language skills of preschool children (DeBaryshe, Rodarmel, Daly, & Huntley, 1992) For this study, we hypothesised that children whose parents have higher expectations about their educational attainment and who read to them more often and for longer periods of time will obtain higher scores on measures of oral language and reading abilities The purposes of the study presented here were to investigate the relationship between selected child and family demographic characteristics, family processes, and preschool experience with poor Peruvian �rst-grade children’s oral language and reading abilities and to determine whether those variables help to explain differences among children living in poverty Methods Participants and procedures The study was conducted with 137 �rst-grade Peruvian Spanish-speaking children and their parents Children were randomly selected among �rst-grade students at �ve public schools located in a poor urban neighbourhood in Lima, Peru All �rst-grade classes at each of the schools (17 in total) were included in the study, except for classes of repeaters in one school T he number of students per class ranged from 33 to 44 First-grade children who had not repeated �rst grade and who had no cognitive, physical, and/or psychological disabilities, as reported by teachers, were included Siblings were not included After exclusions, a 25% random sample of children per classroom yielded an overall sample of 150 children From the 150 initial sample, 142 parents were interviewed By the time of the assessment children of the interviewed parents were no longer attending school Thus, from the 142 parents interviewed, 137 children were assessed Data from parent interviews without the corresponding child assessment data were not included Parents were interviewed at their homes or at the school before starting children’s assessments Children were assessed month before the school year ended The �rst author and two research assistants, who were Peruvian licensed psychologists, conducted data collection Child and family predictor variables For this study child and family predictor variables were obtained from the parent interviews Child and family demographic variables were: child age (in months), child sex, child birth order (in two strata: �rstborn, and birth order 2–9), maternal education (mother’s years of schooling), and parent language status (score on an 8-item scale) Family process variables were: parent-to-child reading (score on a 4item scale) and parent expectations about child’s educational attainment (high school or less, technical, and university) T hese variables represent the response of the parent who was interviewed Parent respondents were 118 mothers and 19 fathers T ype of preschool the child attended (no preschool, nonformal preschool, and public/private preschool) was also a predictor variable in this study T he parent language status scale contains questions about both parents’ Spanish language status, as native or second language, and the age when and the way in which they learned Spanish Values ranged from to 28, with a higher score indicating that a parent learned Spanish in childhood, and at school T he parent-to-child reading scale contains questions that included frequency, reading time per session, and type of reading Values ranged from to 14, with a higher score indicating more frequent and complex parent-to-child readings Table presents data on sample characteristics Child outcome variables T he outcome variables were children’s scores on two measures of oral language, Picture Vocabulary and Verbal Analogies, and two measures of reading abilities, Letter-Word Identi�cation (LWI) and Reading Comprehension Children were individually given three tests of the Spanish version of the Woodcock-Mun˜ oz Language Survey (WMLS-S; Woodcock & Mun˜ oz-Sandoval, 1993): Picture Vocabulary, Verbal Analogies, and Letter-Word Identi�cation The measure of reading comprehension was the Prueba de Comprension Lectora de Complejidad Linguăừstica Progresiva (CLP; Alliende, Condemar´õ n, & Milicic, 1993), given to groups of 10–12 children T able shows descriptive data on these measures Other descriptive demographic information Contextual information about the children and families who participated in the study was also gathered through the parent interviews Among fathers, 52% had studied at high school (complete or incomplete) All fathers in the sample were INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT , 2002, 26 (4), 334–344 337 Table Sample description: Children and family characteristics ( N ˆ 137) Characteristics Children Age in years Sex (% female) Birth order % �rstborn % born 2–9 Type of preschool attended % public/private preschool % non-formal preschool % no preschool Oral language scores: WM-Picture Vocabulary WM-Verbal Analogies Reading scoresa WM-Letter-Word Identi�cation CLP-Reading comprehension Family Maternal education in years % no schooling % primary education % some secondary education % complete secondary education Parent language status score Parent-to-child reading score Parent expectations about child’s educational attainment % high school or less % technical % university % Mean SD Range — 53 6.9 — 0.5 — 6.0–8.5 — 29 71 — — — — — — 41 30 29 — — — — — — — — — — — 2.6 3.8 1.6 2.2 0–5 0–11 — — 11.15 12.17 9.5 13.2 0–41 0–41 — 14— 56 23 — — — — — — 20 3.4 0–11 — — — 6.9 4.3 — — — 7–30 3–14 22 46 32 — — — — — — — — — a For descriptive reasons the reading scores are presented here in their raw score form In the statistical analyses these scores were dichotomised employed; however, the majority of them were employed in menial jobs and jobs with unstable low incomes (e.g., street vendor, construction worker, driver) This was also the case for most of the 44% of mothers who were employed Most of the parents had migrated from rural Andean communities, and around 60% of them spoke Spanish as a second language Another characteristic of families in this study is that both parents lived in the homes of almost 80% of the families Measures Woodcock-Mun˜oz Language Survey (WMLS-S), Spanish version The WMLS-S is strati�ed from preschool through adulthood and by grade levels It contains four tests: Picture Vocabulary, Verbal Analogies, Letter-Word Identi�cation, and Dictation Dictation was not included in this study Picture Vocabulary measures the capability to name pictured objects It is an expressive semantic task at the single-word level, which gradually presents familiar, then less familiar vocabulary Verbal Analogies measures the ability to understand and complete a logical word relationship in oral language T he vocabulary remains relatively simple, but relationships among words become increasingly complex This is a task of reasoning with the language In Letter-Word Identi�cation, the sample and �rst four items measure the capability to match a pictographic representation of a word with a picture of an object The child is asked to put his/her �nger on the drawing that represents the big picture T he remaining items measure the child’s ability to recognise individual letters and words It is not assumed that the child knows the meaning of any word The items become more dif�cult as they are comprised of words that appear less and less often in written language (Woodcock & Mun˜oz-Sandoval, 1993) T he test authors provide norms for the WMLS-S by equating levels of Spanish language performance to similar levels of language performance in English T he equating normative data were from more than 2000 Spanish-speakin g persons from Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, and the United States Internal consistency reliability coef�cients are reported by the authors only for the English version of the test T hose test reliabilities were calculated by the split-half procedure by age groups Reported reliability coef�cients for 6-year-olds were: Picture Vocabulary 77, Verbal Analogies 81, and Letter-Word Identi�cation 96 Prueba de ComprensioÂn Lectora de Complejidad Linguăừstica Progresiva (CLP) This standardised test was developed in Chile to assess reading comprehension of Spanish-speakin g children The CLP includes eight reading levels, becoming increasingly dif�cult from linguistic and comprehension perspectives Each level has a parallel form The areas of reading assessed in �rst graders are word, phrase, and sentence comprehension with tasks requiring the children to draw a line 338 CASTRO ET AL / LANGUAGE AND READING OF PERUVIAN CHILDREN to match words, phrases, or sentences with corresponding pictures Six subtests of the �rst level of reading comprehension (three from Form A and three from Form B) were administered A total reading comprehension score was obtained by adding the correct responses from the six subtests Normative data for this test were from a sample of 641 Chilean subjects strati�ed by sex, grade level, and socioeconomic status For the �rst �ve levels of reading comprehension, testretest reliability estimates over weeks were obtained from a subsample of 44 children Those reliability coef�cients were 97 for Form A and 90 for Form B Parent interview T he parent interview protocol included demographic items about the child and family and questions about the child’s preschool experience, parent expectations about her/his child’s education, and home literacy environment Pilot phase of the study A pilot study was conducted with 15 Peruvian children in �rst grade who were not included in the study sample This pilot testing of the complete battery revealed that: (1) Children in this sample were not familiar with some of the objects represented in the picture vocabulary test Most or all children failed three items of the picture vocabulary test of the WMLSS (items were a cheque, a tennis racquet, and a postage stamp) (2) Children gave wrong answers or did not respond to most items in test of Form B of the reading comprehension test Pictures of activities common in rural areas were not familiar to children living in a city, for example, a horse pulling a plough Also, �ve of seven items in test of Form B of the reading comprehension test included words not commonly used in the Spanish spoken in Lima or words with different meanings For instance, in the sentence ‘‘A Moro lo amarraron a un poste’’ (Moro was tied to a stick), the word poste is used to refer to a ‘‘stick’’; however, in urban areas of Lima, the word poste is used to name an electricity pole As a result of the pilot study, test of Form B was not used The picture vocabulary test of the WMLS-S was not changed Reliability and validity Reliability analyses were carried out on parent language status and parent-to-child reading scores The Cronbach’s alpha reliability coef�cient for the 8-item scale of parent language status and for the 4-item scale of parent-to-child reading was 88 Reliability analyses were also carried out on children’s WMLS-S and CLP scores The reliability coef�cient obtained for Picture Vocabulary was low (.41), probably because a large number of items had no variance The score options in this test were incorrect or correct Most children in the sample answered many items correctly and many other items incorrectly To obtain a higher reliability coef�cient, the �ve most discriminating items in this test were selected for the statistical analyses, i.e., items with around 50% of correct responses The reliability coef�cient for these �ve items from Picture Vocabulary was 71 Other reliability coef�cients were 63 for Verbal Analogies, 97 for Letter-Word Identi�cation, and 98 for Reading Comprehension The correlation between the letter-word identi�cation test of the WMLS-S and the CLP reading comprehension test (.88) was used as a measure of predictive validity Data analyses T he �rst step in the analyses was to examine descriptively the associations among predictor and outcome variables, for which correlations and ANOVAs were performed Next, the relations between child and family variables and children’s scores on Picture Vocabulary and Verbal Analogies were explored by performing a hierarchical multivariate multiple regression with subsequent univariate analyses In this analysis two groups of predictor variable values were entered as follows: �rst, the variables indicating child and family demographi c characteristics (child sex, child age in months, child birth order, maternal education, and parent language status), and second, the family process variables (parent-to-child reading at home, and parent expectations about child’s educational attainment) and type of preschool the child attended T wo hierarchical logistic regressions were performed to explore the relations between child and family variables and children’s scores on Letter-Word Identi�cation (LWI) and Reading Comprehension , respectively Logistic regressions were necessary because preliminary descriptive data analyses showed non-normal distributions of the scores on the reading tests To meet the requirement of logistic regression, children’s scores in the two reading tests were dichotomised into two categories: lower and higher dif�culty Scores were dichotomised using levels of test item dif�culty as criterion For LWI, scores in the lower dif�culty category correspond to children who could identify only letters and one-syllable words Scores in the higher dif�culty category correspond to children who could also identify words of two and more syllables For reading comprehension, scores in the lower dif�culty category correspond to children’s reading comprehension ability at the one-word level Scores in the higher dif�culty category correspond to children’s reading comprehension ability at the sentence level For both analyses, variables were entered in two steps, in the same order as for the oral language analysis Results Correlations among predictor variables and children’s language and reading abilities Descriptive analyses were conducted to examine the association among predictor variables, and children’s scores on the oral language and reading measures As can be seen in T able 2, these analyses show modest to moderate signi�cant positive correlations among maternal education, parents’ language, parent-to-child reading at home, parent expectations about child’s educational attainment, and type of preschool child attended One-way ANOVAs performed on the categorical predictor variables indicate that child sex was not signi�cantly related to any of the other (continuous/ordinal) predictor variables, and child birth order had a signi�cant positive relationship with maternal education (Eta2 ˆ 03; p < 05) and parent-to-child reading at home (Eta2 ˆ 04; p < 05) Regarding bivariate relationships between predictor and outcome variables, for the language measures, child sex and parent expectations were signi�cantly associated with Picture Vocabulary scores; and parent expectations was the only predictor variable associated with Verbal Analogies scores (Table 3) For the reading measures, child birth order, parentto-child reading, parent expectations, and type of preschool were signi�cantly associated with Letter-Word Identi�cation 339 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT , 2002, 26 (4), 334–344 Table Spearman’s correlations among continuous and ordinal predictor variables Predictor variables Child age Maternal education Parent language status Parent-to-child reading Parent expectations T ype of preschool attended Maternal education Parent language status Parent-to-child reading Parent expectations ¡.11 — ¡.17* 47** — 03 27** 29** — ¡.09 43** 34** 34** — Type of preschool attended 05 32** 21* 23** 35** — * p < 05; ** p < 01 and Reading Comprehension scores In addition, child age was associated with Reading Comprehension scores (Table 4) Which child and family variables were signi�cantly related to children’s oral language scores? T here was no statistically signi�cant overall relationship, at the multivariate level, between the child and family demographic variables as a group and the two measures of children’s oral language However, as shown in Table 3, there was a signi�cant overall relationship between child sex and Picture Vocabulary and Verbal Analogies, multivariate F(2, 127) ˆ 3.37; p < 05 T his result seems to be primarily attributable to the relationship between child sex and children’s Picture Vocabulary scores Child sex accounted for 5% of the variance in performance on Picture Vocabulary, with boys (M ˆ 3.0) scoring signi�cantly higher than girls (M ˆ 2.2) There was no statistically signi�cant overall relationship among the predictor variables as a group and children’s scores in Picture Vocabulary and Verbal Analogies when the family process and preschool variables were entered, after controlling for child and family demographic characteristics However, when this second group of variables was entered, there continued to be a signi�cant overall relationship between child sex and children’s oral language Also, there was an overall signi�cant relationship between parent expectations about child’s educational attainment, and children’s oral language, multivariate F(2, 127) ˆ 4.65; p < 05 These results appear to be attributable to the relationship between parent expectations about child’s educational attainment and children’s scores on both Picture Vocabulary and Verbal Analogies The parent expectations variable accounted for 24% of the variance on Picture Vocabulary scores and 26% of the variance on Verbal Analogies Results of the multivariate multiple regression are presented in Table A Bonferroni post hoc test with a signi�cance level set at 05 was performed to identify the signi�cant differences among the three subcategories of parent expectations about child’s educational attainment for each oral language measure Among the three levels of expectations, children whose parents had the highest level of expectation (university, M ˆ 3.0) obtained signi�cantly higher scores in picture vocabulary than children whose parents had lower expectations (high school or less, M ˆ 1.9) Similarly, children whose parents had the highest level of expectation (university, M ˆ 4.4) obtained signi�cantly higher scores in verbal analogies than children whose parents had lower expectations (high school or less, M ˆ 2.8) There were no signi�cant differences in children’s oral language scores between the ‘‘technical’’ group and the ‘‘university’’ or ‘‘high school or less’’ groups Table Results of hierarchical multivariate multiple regression on two measures of oral language of first-grade Peruvian children ( N ˆ 137) Univariate Predictor variables Step 1: Child and family demographic variables Child sex Child age Child birth order Maternal education Parents’ language status Step 2: Family process and preschool variables Parent-child reading at home Parent expectations about child’s educational attainment Type of preschool attended * p < 05; ** p < 01 Multivariate F(df ) 3.37 2.88 1.35 0.01 0.54 Picture Vocabulary R2/Eta2 Verbal Analogies F(df ) Beta SE 3.16(8)** 5.97(1)* 5.42(1 ) 2.72(1 ) 0.00(1 ) 0.39(1) — ¡0.65 0.00 ¡0.48 0.00 ¡0.00 — 27 02 29 ¡.05 02 R2/Eta2 — 00 ¡.02 00 12 ¡.01 F(df ) Beta SE 1.73(8) 0.03 (1) 0.01 (1) 0.16 (1) 0.02 (1) 0.96 (1) — 0.00 0.00 ¡0.17 ¡0.00 ¡0.00 — 38 03 42 07 03 (2,127)* (2,127) (2,127) (2,127) (2,127) 05** 15 008 08 ¡.03 0.69 (2,127) 4.65 (2,127)* 10 24** 1.02(1 ) 6.72(1)* 0.00 0.55 03 21 11 26** 0.75 (1) 5.29 (1)* 0.00 0.70 05 31 1.09 (2,127) 06 0.01(1 ) 0.00 17 17 2.10 (1) 0.36 25 340 CASTRO ET AL / LANGUAGE AND READING OF PERUVIAN CHILDREN Table Results of hierarchical logistic regression on two measures of reading abilities of first-grade Peruvian children ( N ˆ 137) Letter-Word Identi�cation Predictor variables Step Eta2 Beta SE Eta2 Beta SE ¡0.53 0.05 0.94** 0.07 0.00 41 03 43 07 03 003 041* 079*** 003 000 ¡0.19 0.08* 1.32** 0.03 0.00 40 03 42 07 03 036* 082*** 0.06 0.95** 05 38 042* 105*** 0.05 1.34*** 06 39 068** 0.72* 32 046* 0.48 30 1: Child and family demographic variables Child sex 015 Child age 015 Child birth order 045* Maternal education 011 Parents’ language status 000 Step 2: Family process and preschool variables Parent-child reading at home Parent expectations about child’s educational attainment Type of preschool attended Reading Comprehension * p < 05; ** p < 01; *** p < 001 Which child and family variables were signi�cantly related to children’s letter-word identi�cation and reading comprehension scores? Results of the logistic regression indicate that the group of child and family demographic variables did not have an overall statistically signi�cant relationship with scores in Letter-Word Identi�cation (LWI) However, child birth order was signi�cantly associated with children’s scores on LWI When the family process and preschool variables were entered, the model had an overall statistically signi�cant relationship with scores on LWI, x2 ˆ 17.71; p < 001 Speci�cally, there were signi�cant relationships between parent expectations and type of preschool child attended with children’s scores on LWI T he birth order variable was no longer signi�cant (Table 4) Post hoc tests of signi�cant differences in proportions set at a 05 level of signi�cance were performed to determine if differences between groups in the parent expectations and type of preschool variables were signi�cant Children whose parents had the highest expectations about their children’s educational attainment (university) were more likely to be in the higher dif�culty category of LWI than were those whose parents had lower expectations (technical and high school or less) T he difference between the ‘‘technical’’ and ‘‘high school or less’’ groups was not signi�cant Parent expectations accounted for 8% of the variance on LWI scores Similarly, children who attended private or public preschools were more likely to be in the higher dif�culty category of LWI than those who did not attend preschool There was no signi�cant difference in children’s LWI scores between children attending nonformal preschools and either those who attended public/private preschools or did not attend preschool T ype of preschool attended accounted for 7% of the variance on LWI A signi�cant relationship was found between child and family demographic variables and children’s Reading Comprehension scores, x2 ˆ 16.99; p < 01 As shown in Table 4, speci�cally, child age and child birth order were signi�cantly related to children’s performance on the reading comprehension test Older children were more likely to be in the higher dif�culty category of Reading Comprehension than younger children Child age accounted for 4% of the variance on Reading Comprehension scores Children who were born �rst in the family were more likely to be in the higher dif�culty category of Reading Comprehension than those who had a higher birth order Child birth order accounted for 8% of the variance on Reading Comprehension scores When the family process and preschool variables were entered, the model was signi�cantly related to children’s Reading Comprehension scores, x2 ˆ 22.40; p < 0001 Child age and birth order continued to be signi�cant In addition, the parent expectations variable was signi�cantly associated with children’s Reading Comprehension scores (see Table 4) T he post hoc test of signi�cant difference in proportions was performed to determine whether the differences between groups in the parent expectations variable were signi�cant Children whose parents had the highest expectation about their children’s educational attainment (university) were more likely to be in the higher dif�culty category of Reading Comprehension than were those whose parents had lower expectations (technical or high school or less) T he difference between the ‘‘technical’’ and ‘‘high school or less’’ groups was not signi�cant Parent expectations accounted for 11% of the variance on Reading Comprehension scores T he percentage of children in the high dif�culty category of LWI and Reading Comprehension and the results of the post hoc tests are presented in T able Discussion T he results of this study provide further evidence of the importance of family beliefs and behaviours and the bene�ts of preschool education on disadvantaged children’s development Parent expectations about their child’s educational attainment emerged as the strongest variable across measures of children’s oral language and reading, after child and family demographic variables were controlled One interpretation of the importance of this variable is that in the context of this study population with relative homogeneit y in socioeconomic status, the expectations of parents regarding their children’s educational attainment may be a proxy for several crucial aspects of parent behaviours for enhancing children’s performances in oral language and reading, including communicating their high expectations to their children T hus, another way in which the parent expectations variable may in�uence children’s perfor- 341 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT , 2002, 26 (4), 334–344 Table Percentage of first-grade Peruvian children in high difficulty group of Letter-Word Identification and Reading Comprehension by subcategories of significant predictor variables (N ˆ 137) Letter-Word Identi�cation Between groups difference Reading Comprehension Predictor variables n % children in high groupa Extreme groups difference % children in high groupa Between groups difference — Extreme groups difference Child birth order Firstborn Birth order 2–9 40 97 40.0 19.6 20.4* 50.0 21.6 28.4* Parent expectations about child’s educational attainment High school or less Technical University 30 63 44 10.0 20.6 43.2 10.6 22.6* 33.2* 13.3 22.2 52.3 8.9 30.1* 39.0* Type of preschool attended No preschool Non formal preschool Public/private preschool 40 41 56 10.0 24.4 38.0 14.4 14.4 n.s — — 28.0* — a Percentage of children in high dif�culty group * p < 05 n.s ˆ no signi�cant predictor variable mance is through children’s efforts to ful�l their parents’ high expectations High parental expectations may be explored as an important factor that promotes resiliency and increases child motivation The importance of parental expectation is emerging in the international literature A positive relationship between parent expectations and children’s reading and math scores was found by Phillips (1992) in a study of the in�uence of parental expectations and short-term goals on the school achievement of children from second through sixth grade in Canadian schools Similarly, parental expectation was found to be a signi�cant predictor of reading achievement in a national study conducted with a sample of over 3000 �fth-grade students in the Republic of Ireland (Morgan et al., 1995) From a different perspective, Australians Carpenter and Fleishman (1987) found that as the level of parent expectations about their children’s education increased, students’ achievemen t in higher education also increased In the USA parents’ educational expectations have been found to be positively associated to children’s achievemen t in different racial/ethnic groups For example, Halle et al (1997) reported positive and signi�cant relationships between parent expectations and children’s achievement in reading and math in a group of African-American students in third and fourth grades Another study with low-income 12-year-old AfricanAmerican children found that parent expectations of educational attainment consistently predicted those children’s academic performance (Reynolds, 1998) In a study that compared Asian immigrant, Asian American, and White American high school students (Mau, 1997), it was found that high parental expectations seem to be associated with Asian students’ academic success regardless of their status as new or established immigrants Although this study did not measure children’s perceptions of their parents’ expectations, other studies have, Goyette and Xie (1999) found that high parental expectations explained a large portion of children’s higher educational expectations among Asian-American students participating in the study compared with White students In a study with low-income African-American children in sixth grade, it was found that children’s perceptions of parent and teacher expectations were associated with reading and math achievement, above and beyond sociodemographic variables and measures of parent and teacher expectations (Gill, 1997) From the evidence provided in the literature and our study �ndings, questions about parental expectations that may be useful to explore in future research are: What strategies Peruvian parents who have high educational expectations for their children use to support their children’s developmen t and learning? Is children’s better performance in school the result of their efforts to ful�l their parents’ high expectations? As children perform better in school, parental expectations increase? Does this in turn provide further motivation for children to improve their performance at school? Our �ndings related to family processes associated with children’s language and reading skills indicate that future studies with the Peruvian population should explore the role of parental beliefs and behaviours in promoting child language and literacy developmen t and school success among children in poverty The strong effect of the parent expectations variable found in this study may indicate that this variable contains information about a wide range of effective strategies that parents with high expectations use and that have not been measured in this study For example, parents with high expectations may provide their children with an affective environmen t at home, structure for learning, and use discipline and organisation more effectively than parents with lower expectations Future research should explore these and other strategies In this study, parent expectations were correlated with the type of preschool their children attended, thus, it seems appropriate to suggest that choosing a particular type of preschool for their children might be another example of a strategy or action that would support child developmen t and education Regarding preschool experience, the type of preschool attended was found to be signi�cantly related to children’s 342 CASTRO ET AL / LANGUAGE AND READING OF PERUVIAN CHILDREN scores on letter-word identi�cation In general, this �nding in this population is con�rmatory of other research �ndings in countries around the world The positive effects of preschool education on poor children’s developmen t and school achievement are well-documented (e.g., Boocock, 1995 ; Campbell & Ramey, 1994 ; Schweinhart et al., 1993) The differences found in children’s scores on the letter and word identi�cation measure according to the type of preschool they attended suggest that we must formulate more speci�c, detailed research questions about the relationship between type and quality of preschool services in Peru Results of this study indicate that children attending private or public preschools obtained signi�cantly higher scores than children who did not attend preschool One explanation of this �nding may be the lack of access to written materials in the homes of low-income families, thus, attendanc e at preschool may give children in these families an opportunity to become familiar with written materials and have experiences that support literacy development The letter and word identi�cation scores of children attending nonformal preschools were lower than those of children who attended private or public preschools, and higher than those of children who did not attend preschool; however, those differences were not signi�cant This could be interpreted as a difference in the amount, intensity, and/or quality of the literacy experiences offered by nonformal preschool versus those offered by a private or public preschool It may be that what these programmes offer to the children is more than what they receive at home, but not enough to make a signi�cant impact in their reading skills Differential effects on children’s developmen t have been reported from other studies conducted with children attending different types of day care services and preschools and according to the quality of services provided (e.g., Burchinal, Lee, & Ramey, 1989 ; Burchinal et al., 1996 ; Peisner-Feinberg & Burchinal, 1995 ; Schliecker, White, & Jacobs, 1991) This study does not provide enough evidence of possible differential effects by type of preschool service on Peruvian children’s reading abilities, and speci�cally not about the impact of nonformal preschools Considering that nonformal preschools are the most common preschool service available for low-income populations in Peru, further research needs to be conducted to determine the characteristics and the extent to which this type of preschool may affect Peruvian children’s developmen t and education In general, it seems necessary to gain objective information about the characteristics of the preschool services poor children are receiving and to �nd ways to measure quality in this culture, if we want to inform policy and practice on the factors in preschools that increase Peruvian children’s probabilities of school success In contrast to �ndings in USA studies (Bryant, PeisnerFeinberg, & Clifford, 1993; Peisner-Feinberg & Burchinal, 1995), in the present study no signi�cant relationship was found between type of preschool and children’s oral language scores This raises further questions Why was type of preschool signi�cant for a reading measure but not for oral language in Peruvian children? What characteristics in each preschool type are associated with reading and oral language in this population? In the statistical analysis, the relationship between type of preschool and oral language measures approached signi�cance; however, this may indicate that the preschool programmes attended by children in the study— even those presumed to provide better educational services— were not good enough to signi�cantly affect children’s oral language scores Classroom experiences that support language developmen t are characterised by the effective use of materials, activities, and teaching interactions to help children learn to communicate in words and to use learning concepts Factors such as a high adult:child ratio, lack of educational equipment and materials, and/or lack of preparation of teachers, may prevent preschool programmes from accomplishing their goals regarding children’s language development T hese �ndings suggest the need for further investigation of Peruvian preschools, including measures of a variety of dimensions of quality and their relationship with speci�c child developmental outcomes T he lack of signi�cance of the variables maternal education, parent-to-child reading, and parent language status are also interesting �ndings of this study As shown in T able 2, these three variables are correlated with the parent expectations variable and with each other As explained earlier, in this study parent expectations may represent an array of parent behaviours, in addition to parent-to-child reading, which have not been measured The over-riding importance of parental expectations in this population seems to be in�uencing the contributions of other variables Finally, the nonsigni�cance of the parent language status variable indicates that it may be more important to examine the amount and quality of the linguistic interactions at home rather than parent language status T his is related to our perspective about the relevance of studying the role of family processes instead of, or in addition to, family demographic s to identify differences among lowincome families that may be associated with child development One limitation should be considered when interpreting the results of this study regarding children’s Picture Vocabulary scores Dif�culties in obtaining acceptable reliability estimates for this subtest lead to our use of a small number of items in the analysis, thus, generalisability of these results should be viewed with caution Issues on cross-cultural testing T he challenges experienced in this study with instruments for measuring oral language and reading abilities con�rm the need for developin g culture-speci�c instruments for Spanish-speaking populations The extent to which a translated language test is appropriate for use in a different cultural and linguistic setting seems questionable An example from this study is the item ‘‘llama’’ in the picture vocabulary test of the WMLS Most children who responded to this item correctly, responded incorrectly to �ve or six items before and to all items after ‘‘llama’’ T his item is located among items expected to be of higher dif�culty for �rst-grade children; however, for many children in this study the llama was a familiar animal, since it is originally from the Andean region It is possible that because of its location in the test, there were children who lost the opportunity of responding to this item correctly, so they may have lost an additional point in their scores On the other hand, if it was meant to represent higher dif�culty, this item appears not to be useful for this population T he lack of culture-speci�c language assessment instruments for culturally and linguistically diverse populations in developing countries and in the United States may have a negative and long-lasting in�uence on children for whom educational services may make the difference in their lives INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT , 2002, 26 (4), 334–344 Results obtained from translations of tests that have not been standardised or adapted appropriately for the population in which they will be used may lead to misclassi�cation and incorrect placement or may exclude children from intervention programmes Some efforts have been made (Atkin, 1989; Landers & Kagitcibasi, 1990); however, there is still much work to to af�rm that language assessments for culturally and linguistically diverse populations are free of reliability and validity problems It is necessary to develop measures that describe and explain the children’s current developmen t and functioning in their environments (Baine, 1990) Research will be enhanced in Latin America when appropriate instruments are employed Conclusions T he importance of family processes in enhancing children’s language and reading skills is supported by the results of this study Parental expectations appeared to be strongly associated with both children’s language and reading skills This signi�cant association, in this population, may be interpreted as a proxy for caregiving practices at home, other than those measured in this study, that promote children’s developmen t and learning Also, the study results are con�rmatory of �ndings in numerous studies around the world about the bene�ts of early childhood education on the developmen t and education of children living in poverty In this study, children with no preschool experienc e performed least well on letter and word identi�cation However, it would be necessary to investigate further why this signi�cant relationship was not found on reading comprehension scores and on the oral language measures, vocabulary, and verbal analogies Future research will also be needed to examine in which ways type and quality are related in preschool services offered to Peruvian children Finally, with regard to research methodology, this study presents evidence of the need for developin g culturally appropriate instruments to measure oral language and reading in Peruvian Spanish-speaking populations T he translated version of the oral language test had 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