Journal of Research in Reading, ISSN 0141-0423 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2012.01545.

x
Volume 38, Issue 1, 2015, pp 91–108

Parent and child attitudinal factors

in a model of children’s print-concept
knowledge

Jennifer Dobbs-Oates
Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN, USA

Jill M. Pentimonti and Laura M. Justice

The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

Joan N. Kaderavek
University of Toledo, OH, USA

The present study investigates the role of attitudinal variables, such as children’s lit-
eracy interest and parents’ reading beliefs, in conjunction with home literacy activities
(HLA), in predicting children’s print-concept knowledge. The objective of the study
is to test a theoretical model describing the relationship among these variables. This
study involved 551 low-income preschool children. Structural equation modelling was
used to test the model. The model was a good fit for the data when parental teaching of
reading/writing was used as the measure of HLA. In the model, negative parent read-
ing beliefs and parent teaching predicted print-concept knowledge. Results suggest
that practitioners should consider not only the literacy activities children and parents
participate in, but also their attitudes towards those activities.

Young children’s literacy development has been a central area of early childhood research
for many years. Much of this research has focused on children’s participation in literacy-
related activities at home as a crucial predictor of emergent literacy skills (e.g., Burgess,
Hecht & Lonigan, 2002; Griffin & Morrison, 1997; Hood, Conlon & Andrews, 2008).
More recently, some experts have argued that parents’ and children’s attitudes towards
literacy also have an important role to play in the development of emergent literacy skills
(Audet, Evans, Williamson & Reynolds, 2008; Bracken & Fischel, 2008; Curenton &
Justice, 2008; Roberts, Jurgens & Burchinal, 2005; Weigel, Martin & Bennett, 2006a).
An attitude, by definition, is one’s tendency to evaluate a particular entity favourably
or unfavourably (Olson & Maio, 2003). It is generally understood that attitudes can be
expressed in three ways, namely through thoughts, feelings and behaviours (Jonas, Eagly
& Stroebe, 1994). Salient attitudinal factors potentially affecting children’s literacy

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UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
92 DOBBS-OATES, PENTIMONTI, JUSTICE and KADERAVEK

development include (a) children’s interest in literacy and (b) parents’ reading-related
beliefs. For the present purposes, we use Corsini’s (1999) definition of interest as ‘an
attitude characterized by a desire to give selective attention to something significant to the
individual’ (p. 497), which we represent in this study based on reports of children’s feelings
and behaviours towards literacy. Parents’ reading-related beliefs are thoughts that indicate
favourable or unfavourable attitudes towards reading. Thus, interest and beliefs are distinct
constructs, but both fall under the larger category of attitudes.
The present study proposes a comprehensive model using child and parent attitudinal
variables, in conjunction with home literacy activities (HLA), to predict a key emergent
literacy skill, print-concept knowledge. Print-concept knowledge involves an understand-
ing of the organisational properties of print including distinguishing print from pictures,
understanding that a letter is a unit of print and that letters can be combined to make words,
and recognising the correct orientation of print on a page (Justice, Bowles & Skibbe, 2006).
Print-concept knowledge, also commonly referred to as concepts about print, has been
identified as one of 11 variables consistently predicting preschool and kindergarten chil-
dren’s later literacy achievement (National Early Literacy Panel [NELP], 2008). According
to the meta-analysis performed by the NELP, early childhood print-concept knowledge
has a moderate relationship to later decoding and spelling and a strong relationship to later
reading comprehension. Print-concept knowledge is an appropriate outcome measure for
the model tested in this study due to its predictive value and its clear connection to books.
Print-concept knowledge is assessed in the context of a shared book reading experience.
Similarly, the predictors in the proposed model (child interest, parent beliefs and HLA)
place most of their emphasis on the experience of shared book reading.

Parents’ attitudes towards literacy

Parent beliefs about reading are typically measured via a parent-report questionnaire that
asks parents to rate their agreement with various statements relating to (a) the importance and
function of reading with their children, (b) the process by which children acquire literacy-
related skills and/or (c) the role of parents in children’s learning-to-read process (Audet
et al., 2008). The Parent Reading Beliefs Inventory (PRBI; DeBaryshe & Binder, 1994) is
a measure commonly used to assess this domain. High scores on the PRBI indicate beliefs
consistent with the following: ‘parents are important teachers, … the goals of reading are
enjoyment, knowledge, and oral language rather than reading instruction per se, … limited
time and material resources should not prevent parents from reading aloud, … [and] lan-
guage is influenced by environmental stimulation’ (DeBaryshe, 1995, p. 6). PRBI scores
are positively related to socioeconomic status (SES), parents’ own book-reading habits,
children’s interest in books, frequency of shared book reading and quality of shared book
reading (DeBaryshe, 1995).
Parental reading beliefs have been assessed in low-income families, a population of
relevance to this study. For instance, in a study of lower-SES families residing in a rural
Appalachian community, Curenton and Justice (2008) investigated the relationship among
parent beliefs (using the PRBI), HLA, maternal education and children’s print-concept
knowledge. Study findings indicated that more educated mothers had higher scores on the
PRBI and that their children had higher scores on a measure of print-concept knowledge.
Maternal education was not associated with the frequency of parent–child shared reading;
rather, mothers’ beliefs about shared reading mediated the relationship between maternal

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PARENT AND CHILD ATTITUDINAL FACTORS 93

education and children’s knowledge of print conventions. The authors concluded that more
educated mothers held more positive beliefs related to reading, resulting in differences in
how they read with their children. This study underscored the need to consider both HLA
and parental literacy attitudes to more completely understand children’s emergent literacy
development.
Other research with the PRBI has produced a two-factor structure describing parent
reading beliefs as either facilitative or conventional (Weigel, Martin & Bennett, 2006b).
Facilitative parents (a) believed in taking a more active role in teaching their children at
home; (b) expressed the desire to promote their children’s vocabulary, knowledge and
morals; and (c) reported engaging in more shared reading and other language-based activi-
ties with their children. In contrast, conventional parents (d) believed that schools were
primarily responsible for teaching children and (e) reported barriers to regular shared book
reading. The children of facilitative parents had better print-concept knowledge and more
interest in reading.
Evans, Fox, Cremaso and McKinnon (2004) also reported the emergence of a two-
factor structure in their measurement of parent beliefs; in this study the authors used the
Approaches to Beginning Reading and Reading Instruction (ABRRI; Evans, Barraball &
Eberlee, 1998) instrument as a measure of parent beliefs about children’s literacy, focusing
on understanding parents’ perceptions of the learning-to-read process. Results indicated
two factors: graphophonemic and constructivist. Parents with graphophonemic beliefs
emphasised phonics, sounding out words and using books with structured vocabulary.
In contrast, constructivist parents emphasised general knowledge and children’s use
of language, picture clues and context during literacy activities. In a follow-up study,
researchers reported that graphophonemic parents were more likely to read with the goal of
fostering their child’s reading skills and more frequently referred to print while reading. In
contrast, constructivist parents generally read to bond with or soothe their child and made
fewer references to alphabetic and print concepts (Audet et al., 2008).
As the findings of the above studies demonstrate, parent-belief studies use a number
of different assessment instruments to assess parent literacy attitudes; often, researchers
use factor analysis to identify the instrument’s salient constructs (e.g., Audet et al., 2008;
Bingham, 2007; Stipek, Milburn, Clements & Daniels, 1992). Following this trend, we
completed a factor analysis of our parent-belief instrument. Similar to other investigations
(e.g., Audet et al., 2008; Evans et al., 2004), a two-factor structure emerged. Factor analy-
sis uncovered two constructs: positive parent literacy beliefs (PPRB) and negative parent
literacy beliefs (NPRB). The positive/negative parent-belief factors are discussed in greater
detail in the ‘Method’ section of this paper.

Children’s attitudes towards literacy

Young children’s interest in reading-related activities is a relatively understudied compo-

nent of early literacy development. There is currently no universally agreed upon defini-
tion of young children’s reading interest, or a single preferred strategy for measuring it.
Measurement strategies have included child report (Ecalle, Magnan & Gibert, 2006;
Frijters, Barron & Brunnello, 2000; LePage & Mills, 1990) and observational techniques
(Crain-Thoreson & Dale, 1992; Laakso, Poikkeus, Eklund & Lyytinen, 2004), although
the most common measurement strategy seems to be parents’ report of ‘children’s enjoy-
ment of and frequency of engagement in literacy-related activities’ (defined in Baroody

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94 DOBBS-OATES, PENTIMONTI, JUSTICE and KADERAVEK

& Dobbs-Oates, 2011, pp. 345–346; also used in Bracken & Fischel, 2008; DeBaryshe,
1995; Farver, Xu, Eppe & Lonigan, 2006; Lyytinen, Laakso & Poikkeus, 1998; Roberts
et al., 2005; Olofsson & Niedersoe, 1999; Weigel et al., 2006a). This definition focuses
on both the emotional (enjoyment) and behavioural (frequency of engagement) aspects
of children’s interest. Research findings indicate that child interest can be reliably mea-
sured by simple parent-report instruments (Bracken & Fischel, 2008; Weigel et al., 2006a).
Convergent validity of parent-report measures of children’s literacy interest has been
established with both child-report (Baker & Scher, 2002) and observational measures
(Morrow, 1983). The current study uses a parent-report questionnaire as the measure of
child literacy interest (CLI).
Children’s literacy interest is associated with general emergent literacy skill and early
reading achievement. In fact, extant research has found correlations between children’s
early literacy interest and reading achievement at age 6 (Dale, Crain-Thoreson & Robinson,
1995), progress on basic literacy skills during the first-grade year (Ecalle et al., 2006)
and sentence-reading ability at age 11 (Olofsson & Niedersoe, 1999). Scarborough and
Dobrich (1994) reviewed research from 1960 to 1993 pertaining to the influence of
parent–preschooler reading experiences on children’s language and literacy development.
The authors noted that (a) CLI was a stronger unique predictor of early reading skill than
frequency of shared reading (e.g., Mason, 1992) and (b) CLI was a stronger predictor of
children’s emergent literacy skills (a composite including print-concept knowledge and
alphabet knowledge) than the frequency of HLA (e.g., Wells, 1985).

Home literacy activities in relation to attitudinal variables

HLA have been extensively studied by emergent literacy researchers. Our central interest
in this study is not in HLA per se, but rather in establishing a more comprehensive model of
emergent literacy development that includes attitudinal variables in conjunction with HLA.
Thus, in the following section we describe how HLA relate to children’s literacy interest
and parents’ reading beliefs.
Children may be exposed to a variety of literacy-relevant activities in their home
environment. The frequency of shared reading has attracted the most attention in explora-
tions of home literacy practices (e.g., Bracken & Fischel, 2008; Crain-Thoreson & Dale,
1992). However, experts caution against an exclusive focus on shared reading, noting that
many other HLA are relevant to emergent literacy development (Scarborough & Dobrich,
1994). Other facilitative home activities include explicit teaching of letter names, sounds
and shapes; reading and referring to environmental print; and visiting libraries (Levy,
Gong, Hessels, Evans & Jared, 2006).
The connection between HLA and children’s emergent literacy development varies with
the type of activity and the aspect of emergent literacy being studied. Scarborough and
Dobrich (1994) reported that the median association between frequency of parent–child
reading and emergent literacy skills was 0.27 across reviewed studies. They concluded that
the association between shared reading and emergent literacy was not as substantial as the
field had assumed and that understudied variables (such as CLI) had important roles to play
in emergent literacy development.
The results are equivocal with regard to the relationship between HLA and children’s
attitudes towards literacy. For example, some researchers have documented associations
between young children’s literacy interest and the frequency of parent–child book reading

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PARENT AND CHILD ATTITUDINAL FACTORS 95

(Bracken & Fischel, 2008; Lyytinen et al., 1998; Roberts et al., 2005), the quality of shared
reading (Deckner, Adamson & Bakeman, 2006) and more general indices of home literacy
activity (Farver et al., 2006; Moon & Wells, 1979; Weigel et al., 2006a). In contrast, Frijters
et al. (2000) found no relation between kindergarteners’ literacy interest and HLA.
In a study examining the relationship between parental beliefs and kindergarteners’
home-literacy practices, DeBaryshe, Binder and Buell (2000) identified three patterns of
maternal literacy beliefs: (a) meaning-level orientation, (b) code orientation and (c) idio-
syncratic beliefs. The authors noted that mothers’ behaviours during parent–child literacy
interactions differed in accordance with their belief system. They also found that children
of code-orientation mothers tended to demonstrate higher literacy skills.
A few studies have considered the interrelationship of home literacy, parent beliefs and
child literacy skills. For example, Bingham (2007) considered the relationship among
parent beliefs, home literacy practices and child literacy skills in a study of middle-class
families with preschool children. This study reported that mothers’ reading-related be-
liefs predicted both frequency and quality of shared reading. In a similarly focused study,
Weigel et al. (2006b) found that mothers with facilitative beliefs about reading spent more
time in literacy-related activities with their children. Finally, Bennett, Weigel and Martin
(2002) found that parental belief system and high frequency of home literacy practices
were positively associated with preschoolers’ early literacy skills. The studies above,
however, do not consider the potential impact of children’s level of literacy interest. The
current study builds on previous work by considering both parent and child attitudes about
literacy.

Proposed model

The variables of interest in the present study are CLI, parents’ reading beliefs, HLA and
children’s print-concept knowledge. Most previous studies, as reflected above in the
literature review, investigate the relationships among pairs of these variables (e.g., Audet
et al., 2008; Burgess et al., 2002; Dale et al., 1995). In the present work, our interest is
in the multivariate relationship among the constructs; therefore, the primary objective of
this study is to test a comprehensive theoretical model which involves all constructs of
interest.
As noted in the review above, the most common predictor of emergent literacy skills in
previous research has been the frequency of HLA. Attitudinal variables related to reading/
literacy have garnered much less attention. Our model includes CLI as a predictor of
children’s emergent literacy skills, as first suggested by Scarborough and Dobrich (1994),
and supported by others (Dale et al., 1995; Ecalle et al., 2006; Olofsson & Niedersoe,
1999). Our model includes parent reading beliefs based on literature that suggests that
these beliefs play an important role in creating the home literacy environment (e.g.,
Curenton & Justice, 2008; DeBaryshe et al., 2000; Weigel et al., 2006b). Though no
known study has simultaneously considered all of these variables in this way, the extant
literature seems to suggest that both child interest and parent beliefs have a role to play in
the development of emergent literacy. Thus, we hypothesise that a comprehensive model
including both types of attitudinal variables, as well as HLA, will effectively explain the
patterns of relationship in the data. Structural equation modelling (SEM) provides the
best test of this hypothesis, as it relies on latent variables and a simultaneous analysis of
the entire model.

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96 DOBBS-OATES, PENTIMONTI, JUSTICE and KADERAVEK

Method

Study description
This study involved 551 children randomly selected from 84 preschool classrooms
located in two states. Data were collected across the 2005–2006 and 2006–2007
academic years. As participants in this study, teachers took part in a 30-week book-
reading programme (Project STAR). The intervention involved teacher implementation
of two to four whole-class readings per week and was implemented to investigate the
effects associated with use of read alouds in preschool classrooms (for study details see
Justice, Kaderavek, Fan, Sofka & Hunt, 2009). For the present purposes, pre-intervention
data collected for the 551 children were used.

Participants
Teachers and children were drawn from 84 classrooms; 41% of the classrooms were
affiliated with the Head Start programme, 45% were state funded and 14% were indepen-
dently funded. Forty-five per cent of the classrooms were located in Ohio and 55% were
located in Virginia. The majority of classrooms (81%) were in urban areas.
The 551 participating children were randomly selected from their classrooms to partici-
pate in ongoing assessments for this study. On average, six children were selected from
each classroom. Requirements for eligibility included children who (a) were between
3 years 6 months and 4 years 11 months upon study entry, (b) did not have an individual-
ised education plan (IEP) for a cognitive or social/emotional disability and (c) were able to
be tested in English.
Gender was split evenly in our sample (51% male). The average age of participating
children was 4 years, 4 months in the fall (SD = 4.6 months). The majority of children
enrolled in the study were white, non-Hispanic (42%, n = 229) or African American
(37%, n = 206), with smaller percentages who were multiracial (8%, n = 45), Hispanic
(7%, n = 41) or other (2%, n = 13). English was spoken in the home for 97% of the
children involved in the study. Well over half (67%) of the children’s families reported
an annual income of less than $30,000 and only 9% reported an annual income of over
$60,000. Mothers’ education levels varied; 18% of mothers reported that they had not
completed high school, 66% reported that they had received a high school degree, 9%
reported receiving a 2-year degree and 7% reported earning a Bachelor’s degree or
graduate degree.

Procedures
For the direct measure of children’s print-concept knowledge, children were individu-
ally tested in sessions that lasted between 10 and 15 minutes. The test was adminis-
tered in private settings within children’s preschool programmes by examiners who had
been trained to a specific criterion of performance. The testing occurred over a 6-week
period in the beginning of the school year. To assess CLI, HLA and parental beliefs,
parents were given the Parent Literacy Survey (PLS) in the fall of their preschoolers’
school year. The PLS was created for the purposes of the larger study and its items were
adapted from the PRBI (DeBaryshe & Binder, 1994), the Stonybrook Family Reading
Survey (Whitehurst, 1992) and a literacy-related activities scale developed by Bennett
et al. (2002).

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PARENT AND CHILD ATTITUDINAL FACTORS 97

Measures
Four types of measures were utilised in the current study: (a) direct measures of child print-
concept knowledge, (b) measures of CLI, (c) measures of parental beliefs about literacy
and (d) measures of the frequency of HLA.

Direct measures of children’s print-concept knowledge. The measure we utilised to

assess children’s print-concept knowledge was the Preschool Word and Print Awareness
test (PWPA; Justice & Ezell, 2001; see also Justice et al., 2006).The PWPA is conducted
in the context of a shared book-reading experience and asks children to explain or iden-
tify 12 print concepts (e.g., upper- vs lower-case letters, print directionality, meaning of
environmental print). This measure is administered using the children’s book Nine Ducks
Nine (Hayes, 1990). The administration protocol is similar to Clay’s (1979) protocol for
the Concepts About Print measure. Specifically, the examiner tells the child that they are
going to read a book together and the examiner will need the child’s help. A series of tasks
are embedded into the book-reading experience. Specific examples of items include: ‘Show
me the front of the book’, ‘Where do I begin to read’ and ‘Show me just one letter on this
page’. The complete list of 12 PWPA items is reported in Justice et al. (2006). Most items
are assigned 1 point for a correct response; however, for some items correct responses are
assigned 2 or 3 points and alternative responses assigned 1 or 2 points. Previous research
has demonstrated that the PWPA can be administered with procedural fidelity (Justice &
Ezell, 2001) and scored with inter-rater reliability (Justice & Ezell, 2000). Furthermore,
item-response theory analyses show the PWPA to be a valid indicator of children’s print-
concept knowledge (Justice et al., 2006). The mean PWPA score for this sample was 6
(SD = 3, range of 0–16). This mean score corresponds to a scaled score (M = 100, SD = 15)
of 97, indicating that the average print-concept knowledge in this sample was very near to
average (Justice et al., 2006). As measured on this sample, internal consistency for the 12
items on the PWPA was acceptable (α = .7).

Parent-report measures. The PLS included items relevant to the predictors in this study:
CLI, parent reading beliefs and HLA. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were used to
establish the factors measuring each of these constructs. Specifically, principal axis factoring
(PAF) was used in the process of extracting factors from our set of variables. This method
of extraction is appropriate, as it is used when the research purpose is theory confirmation.
PAF analyses a correlation matrix in which the diagonal contains the communalities and
accounts for the covariation among variables. PAF is thus a correlation-focused approach. See
Table 1 for PLS item factor loadings, as well as their ranges, means and standard deviations.

Child literacy interest. Three items from the PLS formed a latent variable for CLI. Two of the
items asked parents to rate the frequency of children’s literacy-related behaviours per week
(i.e., requests for shared reading and instances of solitary book viewing) and were scored on
a scale of 0 to 8 (i.e., no occurrences to eight occurrences). The third item asked parents to
comment on children’s perceived enjoyment of reading and was scored on a scale from 1 to
5, with 1 equating to little enjoyment and 5 to great enjoyment. This corresponds to a num-
ber of other studies of CLI, which have used three parent-report items to measure children’s
interest (Lyytinen et al., 1998; Weigel et al., 2006a). In fact, Baroody & Dobbs-Oates (2011),
Bracken and Fischel (2008) and DeBaryshe (1995) used items identical or nearly so to the
ones used in this study. For the present study, principal factor analysis validated that these
three items formed a latent variable, eigenvalue 1.97 with 50% of variance explained.

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98 DOBBS-OATES, PENTIMONTI, JUSTICE and KADERAVEK

Table 1. Parent Literacy Survey (PLS) items and factor loadings.

Factor
Parent literacy survey items loading Range M SD
Child literacy interest (CLI; α = .69)
CLI-1.a Frequency of child requests for reading .74 0–8 3.38 2.39
CLI-2. Frequency of solitary book viewing .79 0–8 4.95 2.30
CLI-3. Perceived enjoyment of shared reading .57 1–5 4.30 0.90
Home literacy activities (HLA) (α = .59)
HLA-1. Frequency of shared reading .70 0–8 4.02 2.18
HLA-2. Frequency of library/bookstore visits .41 0–8 1.48 1.77
HLA-3. Frequency child interacts with children’s magazines .40 0–8 2.47 2.58
HLA-4. Frequency of direct teaching about writing/reading .64 0–8 5.26 2.68
Positive parent reading beliefs (PPRB; α = .94)
PPRB-1. Shared reading is fun .79 1–5 4.54 0.73
PPRB-2. Shared reading helps child learn to read .89 1–5 4.69 0.68
PPRB-3. Shared reading promotes child’s imagination .90 1–5 4.66 0.70
PPRB-4. Shared reading builds child’s language skills .92 1–5 4.70 0.65
PPRB-5. Shared reading teaches child about the world .87 1–5 4.59 0.74
Negative parent reading beliefs (NPRB) (α = .64)
NPRB-1. Not enough time to read together .48 1–5 2.54 1.25
NPRB-2. Reading together isn’t a priority .63 1–5 1.47 0.77
NPRB-3. Don’t enjoy reading together .82 1–5 1.87 0.96
Note: Items are adapted from the Stonybrook Family Reading Survey (Whitehurst, 1992), the Parent Reading
Beliefs Inventory (DeBaryshe & Binder, 1994) and the home literacy activities scale by Bennett et al. (2002).
a
Item number abbreviations, also used in Figure 1.

Parent beliefs. Eight items relating to parent reading beliefs were adapted from the
PRBI (DeBaryshe & Binder, 1994), a measure commonly used in research on parent
reading beliefs (e.g., Curenton & Justice, 2008; Weigel et al., 2006b). All items were
scored on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating that parents strongly disagreed with the
statement and 5 indicating strong agreement. Factor analysis of the eight PLS items re-
lated to parent reading beliefs resulted in loadings on two separate factors, representing
positive and negative beliefs, with eigenvalues of 4.3 and 1.6. Five items loaded on the
positive parent reading beliefs (PPRB) factor, with endorsement indicating that parents
believed shared reading is pleasurable and builds children’s skills and knowledge. Three
items loaded on the negative parent reading beliefs (NPRB) factor, with endorsement
indicating that parents believed shared reading is time consuming, not a priority and not
pleasurable (see Table 1). These two separate factors were used in analyses.

Home literacy activities. Items related to HLA were adapted from the Stonybrook Family
Reading Survey (Whitehurst, 1992) and a literacy-related activities scale developed by
Bennett et al. (2002). These items asked parents to rate the frequency of HLA per week
and were scored on a scale of 0–8 (i.e., zero to eight times). HLA also formed a latent vari-
able with four items from the PLS. Once again, factor analysis indicated that the four items
formed a latent variable with an eigenvalue of 1.82 and 30% of variance explained.

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PARENT AND CHILD ATTITUDINAL FACTORS 99

Table 2. Correlations between outcome and predictor variables.

1 2 3 4
1. Print-concept knowledge
2. Child literacy interest .17**
3. Home literacy activities .12** .63**
4. Positive parent reading beliefs .03 .26** .21**
5. Negative parent reading beliefs −.17** −.30** −.31** −.24**
**p < .01.

Results

Descriptive findings
First, to understand the bivariate relationships in the data, we examined correlations
among (a) directly measured print-concept knowledge, (b) the factor score for CLI, (c)
the factor score for PPRB, (d) the factor score for NPRB and (e) the factor score for HLA.
These correlations are presented in Table 2. As expected, many significant relationships
emerged among these variables. NPRB were negatively associated with each of the other
variables. All other variables were positively correlated with one another, with one excep-
tion: PPRB were not significantly correlated with print-concept knowledge.

Model testing
Our primary research goal involved testing a theoretical model of the relationships among
attitudinal variables, frequency of HLA and print-concept knowledge; therefore, we aimed
to assess the fit of the theoretical five-component comprehensive model.
SEM (Amos 4.0; Arbuckle, 1999) was utilised to test this model, thus employing a
confirmatory approach to the analysis of our structural theory. Within the SEM proce-
dure, the causal processes under study are represented by a series of regression equations
and these structural relations are modelled pictorially to enable a conceptualisation of
the hypothesised model. This model is then tested statistically in a simultaneous analysis
of the complete system of variables to determine the extent to which the hypothesised
model is consistent with the data. If the model is consistent with the data (i.e., the ‘fit’ of
the model is good), the model supports the plausibility of the suggested relations among
variables. Two specific aspects of the SEM procedure made this type of statistical test-
ing appropriate for our analyses. First, SEM involves the use of latent variables, which
allowed us to examine theoretical constructs with observable measures (e.g., grouping
related items on the PLS to form a CLI construct). Use of latent variables captures the
unreliability of measurement in the model, which in turn allows structural relations be-
tween latent variables to be more accurately measured. Second, as SEM involves a si-
multaneous analysis of the entire system of variables, our analyses were not restricted to
an additive model as in regression. For this analysis, maximum likelihood was used as
the method for estimation.
In order to investigate this theoretical comprehensive attitudinal model, we assessed the
fit of a five-component model that included CLI, HLA, PPRB, NPRB and print-concept
knowledge. In examining the results from the comprehensive model, we identified ways
in which this model might be modified to improve model fit. More specifically, we

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100 DOBBS-OATES, PENTIMONTI, JUSTICE and KADERAVEK

recognised the need to modify the original model and examine a model that utilised the
single HLA-4 item as a measure of HLA. We chose to assess the fit of this alternative
comprehensive model for both theoretical and statistical reasons. Theoretically, the first
three items in the HLA subscale are oriented towards shared reading and the availability
of materials associated with shared reading, whereas the fourth item (HLA-4) gathers
information on direct parental teaching about reading/writing. As several studies make
the distinction between shared reading and parental teaching in the home environment
(e.g., Hood et al., 2008; Phillips & Lonigan, 2009; Senechal & Le Fevre, 2002), examin-
ing an additional model that used only direct parental teaching as a measure of HLA was
theoretically warranted.
Statistically, in looking at the correlations between the items on the home literacy
scale (HLA-1 to HLA-4) and the outcome measure, PWPA, we found that only the
fourth item in the HLA subscale (HLA-4) was significantly correlated with the outcome
(r = .16), whereas the first three items in the home literacy environment subscale were
not (r = .06, .04 and .03, respectively). Further, the original comprehensive model (the
model using the entire HLA subscale) results showed that the home literacy subscale
was not significantly predictive of print-knowledge scores. This subscale was largely
defined by the first HLA item (HLA-1; frequency of shared reading). Interestingly, there
were strong significant correlations between this first item (HLA-1) and the child in-
terest items (r of .66, .51 and .35 with child interest items); therefore, it was possible
that this overlap in variance may have been explaining the variance in print-knowledge
scores that the entire HLA subscale accounted for. Thus, these correlations suggested
that HLA-4 alone may show a unique significant relationship with the outcome (print-
knowledge scores) that child interest did not reflect. In sum, these factors suggested that
for both theoretical and statistical reasons, investigating the relationship between the
HLA-4 item alone and the outcome might be warranted in the context of the compre-
hensive model.
Therefore, we assessed the fit of a similar five-component comprehensive model that
utilised the single HLA-4 item as opposed to the HLA subscale in the analyses. In order
to compare these two models, we used the χ2 difference test to determine which model
was the best fit for the data, with lower χ2 values indicating a better fitting model. Re-
sults showed that the HLA-4 item only comprehensive model was a better fitting model,
although not significantly so, χ2 (35) = 6.93, p > .05. Given this result, and the aforemen-
tioned theoretical and statistical arguments, we chose to present the results from a compre-
hensive model that utilised only the HLA-4 item as a measure of HLA (see Figure 1). In
looking at the measurement of the latent variables, all of the observed variables were found
to have significant factor loadings on the appropriate latent variables, p < .05, and in the
expected direction, thus verifying the adequacy of the measurement model. See Figure 1
for factor loadings.
To evaluate the model, the first step was to assess the fit between the hypothesised model
and sample data. Two model fit indices recommended by Schumacker and Lomax (2004)
were utilised in the assessment of the model: (a) the root-mean-square error of approxi-
mation (RMSEA) and (b) the comparative fit index (CFI). The RMSEA is a model fit
measure and a standardised measure of χ2. An RMSEA value from .06 to .08 indicates
that the model has a moderate fit (Schumacker & Lomax, 2004). This model’s RMSEA is
.08, therefore this global fit measure indicates a moderate fit. Additionally, the CFI com-
pares the theoretical model fit with the null model that assumes the indicator variables in
the model are uncorrelated. CFI values of greater than .90 indicate a good fitting model

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PARENT AND CHILD ATTITUDINAL FACTORS 101

Figure 1. Comprehensive model.

(Schumacker & Lomax, 2004). The CFI value for this model is .92, suggesting that the fit
of the model is good.
The next step in model evaluation was to examine the standardised path coefficients
for the relations among the latent variables. These coefficients can be seen in Figure 1; all
significant paths, p < .05, are indicated within the figure. Standardised path coefficients can
be considered analogous to standardised beta weights in multiple regression (Shumacker
& Lomax, 2004). The path between the components HLA (i.e., HLA-4 item) and print-
concept knowledge was significant (p < .05) and suggested that the HLA variable accounted
for 1% of the variance in print-concept knowledge. The path between negative beliefs and
print-concept knowledge was also found to be significant (p < .05) and suggested that
NPRB account for 2% of the variance in print-concept knowledge. The remaining two
paths (between child interest and print-concept knowledge and between PPRB and print-
concept knowledge) were not found to be significant.

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102 DOBBS-OATES, PENTIMONTI, JUSTICE and KADERAVEK

Discussion

The goal of the present study was to test a comprehensive theoretical model of the predic-
tors of young children’s print-concept knowledge involving attitudinal, as well as home lit-
eracy, predictors. Through analysis of this model, we aimed to gain a clearer understanding
of attitudinal variables that may contribute to young children’s emergent literacy skills at
the start of preschool. Our particular focus in terms of emergent literacy development was
young children’s print-concept knowledge. Print-concept knowledge is an important area
of development because it is correlated with other aspects of emergent literacy develop-
ment (Chaney, 1994; Johns, 1980; Levy et al., 2006) and it predicts later reading develop-
ment (Day & Day, 1984; Scarborough, 1998). Furthermore, since both print-referencing
assessments (Justice & Ezell, 2001) and interventions (Whitehurst et al., 1994) are
‘socially situated’ within adult–child reading interactions, we hypothesised that children’s
print referencing abilities are affected by both the frequency of reading-related activities
and attitudinal variables.
Our SEM analysis revealed that the comprehensive model, including parent beliefs,
CLI and HLA, fit the data well. Analysis of this model revealed that (a) parents’ nega-
tive reading beliefs (but not positive beliefs) are a significant predictor of print-concept
knowledge, (b) frequency of parents’ direct teaching of children about reading and writing
was a significant predictor of print-concept knowledge and (c) CLI was not a significant
predictor of young children’s print-concept knowledge. Each of these findings will be
discussed in turn.
Parents’ negative (but not positive) reading beliefs were a significant predictor of
children’s print-concept knowledge. Children whose parents reported fewer negative be-
liefs about reading received higher scores on a test of their print-concept knowledge.
An unanticipated finding of this study was that parent reading beliefs presented a two-
factor structure – positive reading beliefs and negative reading beliefs – but only negative
reading beliefs were related to children’s print-concept knowledge. Thus, specific kinds
of ‘positive beliefs’ did not predict children’s print-concept knowledge. For example,
parents’ positive beliefs could emphasise a general ‘enjoyment’ aspect of book reading
(i.e., ‘Shared reading is fun’) or a ‘learning’ orientation (i.e., ‘Reading together helps my
child’s language skills’). Regardless, those beliefs did not significantly relate to children’s
print-concept knowledge. In contrast, negative beliefs about reading were significantly
predictive of children’s print-concept knowledge. The data demonstrated that it is impor-
tant that parents not endorse beliefs such as ‘I don’t have enough time to read’ or ‘I don’t
enjoy reading’.
Our findings about the positive/negative factor system add a new perspective to two-
factor parent belief structures. As we reported previously, researchers have documented
(a) a facilitative versus conventional parent belief structure (Weigel et al., 2006b) and (b) a
graphophonemic versus constructivist structure (Evans et al., 2004). Both are substantially
different from the positive–negative distinction found in the present study. We hypothesise
that our larger sample size (N = 551 as compared to N = 79 [Weigel et al., 2006b] and
N = 148 [Evans et al., 2004]) may have allowed the ‘negative’ pattern to emerge. A previ-
ous finding consistent with our proposed positive–negative belief structure is the finding
that parents who reported barriers to regular shared book reading had children with poorer
print-concept knowledge (Weigel et al., 2006b).
There is an alternative interpretation of these data. It is possible that negative reading be-
liefs function as a proxy for other factors, such as parents’ poor literacy skills. In this case,

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PARENT AND CHILD ATTITUDINAL FACTORS 103

the ‘negative’ variable may constitute a variety of environmental or personal factors that
potentially limit or interfere with children’s print-concept development. Thus, additional
research is needed to understand the mechanism(s) by which parents’ negative reading be-
liefs connect to children’s emergent literacy development and to determine if those reading
beliefs are amenable to intervention.
Another relevant issue here is that parents in this sample tended to score quite high
on positive reading beliefs. Since this factor was approaching a ceiling, it may be that
there was too little variance to detect any relationships. It seems plausible that parents
might endorse the positive belief items due to social desirability pressures; however, it is
not immediately clear why social desirability would not have affected responses to the
negative belief items as well. For some reason, it seems this sample of parents was more
likely to endorse a negative belief related to reading than to deny a positive belief related
to reading.
Turning to our second major finding, regarding HLA, it is important to note that the
complete four-item home literacy scale was not a significant predictor of print-concept
knowledge in early model building; however, when we included just the item relevant to
direct teaching of reading and writing (HLA-4) in the comprehensive model, this item did
predict print-concept knowledge. Studies have suggested that direct teaching is a parent
behaviour distinct from shared reading (Hood et al., 2008), and that these behaviours have
different frequencies (Phillips & Lonigan, 2009) and are tied to different child learning
outcomes (Senechal & LeFevre, 2002). The present study provides further evidence to
suggest that these behaviours need to be considered as distinct and separate aspects of the
home literacy environment.
Our work suggests that parent teaching behaviours are positively predictive of
children’s print-concept knowledge when considered in the context of a model also
including attitudinal variables. Parent teaching behaviours, then, may be an appropri-
ate intervention target if the goal is to improve children’s print-concept knowledge.
In contrast, other aspects of home literacy did not have an association with children’s
print-concept knowledge during our initial model building. Although not a major focus
of this paper, it is interesting to note that the shared reading and access to reading
materials items were positively correlated with children’s interest in literacy-related
activities. This may be a valuable avenue for further study on the topic of children’s
literacy interest. It could be that reading to the child promotes the child’s interest, which
leads to increased literacy skill, which motivates the parent to read more with the child,
and so forth. Clearly, behavioural, attitudinal and skills variables have the potential to
affect one another in complex ways.
Finally, when considering our third major finding, relevant to child interest, the pres-
ent study produced some conflicting results on the topic of children’s literacy interest.
The bivariate correlation between children’s literacy interest and children’s print-concept
knowledge was significant. However, in the comprehensive model, in which parent read-
ing beliefs and parent teaching behaviours were also included, CLI was no longer a sig-
nificant predictor. This may suggest that parental attitudes are of primary importance,
relative to child attitudes, for the development of children’s print-concept knowledge, at
least at this young age. Young children may not have much opportunity to act on their
interests if parental beliefs present a barrier to literacy-related activities. Another possible
explanation is that the measures of child interest and parent beliefs share too much vari-
ance, as a result of the shared collection method, for both variables to be significant in the
same model.

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104 DOBBS-OATES, PENTIMONTI, JUSTICE and KADERAVEK

Limitations

Although this study offers an improvement on many previous studies by considering HLA,
parent reading beliefs and CLI in a single model, we must acknowledge that other poten-
tially relevant variables are not represented in this study. Perhaps most importantly, this
study does not include any measures of children’s language skills or other indices of ability,
apart from the outcome variable. For example, recent work has indicated that children’s
language skills may be significantly associated with children’s literacy interest (Baroody &
Diamond, 2012). Future investigations into attitudinal variables would be strengthened by
including child-level variables such as language skills or general cognitive ability.
This study is limited by its reliance on parent-report for each of the predictor variables.
Some of the shared variance among these variables may be due to the shared method in
which they were collected. Future studies should consider additional sources of informa-
tion, such as teacher report of CLI or daily diary methods of tracking HLA. The HLA mea-
sure used here asks about activities that are more common in more advantaged populations.
There may be other relevant activities in which low-SES families more commonly partici-
pate, and this should be considered in future studies. Another limitation of this study is its
cross-sectional nature. Additional insight into these relationships could be gained by assess-
ing these variables at multiple time points and investigating the connection between earlier
and later variables. In particular, we wonder about the role of child interest as children age
and become more independent in seeking out the activities that appeal to them.
Another significant limitation of the study is that the path coefficients of the predictor
variables are quite small. Thus, the relationships represented here do not account for large
portions of the variation in children’s print-concept knowledge. We acknowledge this limi-
tation; however, we are also aware these variances are consistent with the size of variance
explained in previous studies (e.g., Senechal & LeFevre, 2002). Furthermore, we believe
that this study represents a potentially important exploration of attitudinal variables, which
have received relatively little attention in the emergent literacy literature. This study opens
up directions for future research as these important questions continue to be considered.
Additionally, some of the reliability levels and factor loadings in our measurement mod-
els may be considered low, which introduces potential limitations to our study. However,
as our measures have other desirable properties, such as meaningful theoretical content
coverage of the domains of interest, low reliability and factor loadings may not be major
impediments to use of these constructs (Schmitt, 1996). Finally, our study contains poten-
tial limitations pertaining to generalisability. The sample used in our study fell into a re-
stricted age range in order to meet larger study criteria; thus, findings from our sample may
not be generalisable to other age ranges. As a result, further research should be conducted
to explore the relationships between early literacy skills and age differences. Further, the
mean scores of parents’ positive beliefs show a ceiling effect and therefore the relationship
revealed in our work may not be generalisable to parents who do not self-report high levels
of positive beliefs regarding literacy practices. Finally, as a low-income sample, these re-
sults may not generalise to other, more advantaged populations.

Implications for practice

The present findings suggest that preschool teachers, speech/language clinicians and other
professionals who play a role in promoting young children’s emergent literacy development

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PARENT AND CHILD ATTITUDINAL FACTORS 105

would be wise to attend to attitudinal variables related to their work. Specifically, profes-
sionals may want to provide parents with information on their important role in facilitat-
ing children’s emergent literacy development. Previous research has found that parents
respond favourably to parent training programmes in this domain (see, e.g., Ezell, Justice
& Parsons, 2000). Many family literacy programmes attend to the quantity and quality of
shared reading. Our results suggest that an additional emphasis is worth exploring – that
is, attention to parents’ beliefs about reading, and perhaps the prevention or suppression of
negative reading beliefs. It was those negative beliefs that were most consistently related
to children’s print-concept knowledge in our analyses. Additionally, parents’ practice of
directly teaching about reading and writing was also predictive of print-concept knowl-
edge. Given the large volume of work that is consistent with this finding (e.g., Haney &
Hill, 2004; Senechal & Le Fevre, 2002), direct teaching of such skills should remain a
major focus for potential interventions.

Conclusions

The results of this study support the usefulness of a comprehensive model – including
attitudinal variables – for predicting children’s emergent literacy skills. In particular,
parents’ negative beliefs about reading appear to be valuable predictors of children’s
print-concept knowledge. When early childhood researchers and practitioners overlook
attitudinal variables, we risk ignoring a crucial component of emergent literacy develop-
ment. It is essential that we consider not only what literacy activities children and families
participate in, but also how they feel about those activities. Do they enjoy them? Do they
seek them out, or consider them unimportant? These attitudes have important relationships
to young children’s skill development. The next step is to discover the mechanisms by
which these attitudes influence children’s outcomes.

Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to the many administrators, teachers, children and families who
contributed to this project. This project would not have been possible without Shayne
Piasta, Ying Guo, Xitao Fan, Amy Sofka, Aileen Hunt, Elizabeth Cottone and Tricia Zucker,
along with other members of the research team. Funding was provided by the US Depart-
ment of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, grant #R305G050057 to The Ohio
State University. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or
policies of IES, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products or organisations
imply endorsement by the US Department of Education.

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Jennifer Dobbs-Oates is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development

and Family Studies at Purdue University. Her research interests centre on the development of chil-
dren in preschool and childcare contexts, with an emphasis on how those contexts promote school
readiness. Emergent literacy and early maths skills are her primary outcomes of interest.

Jill M. Pentimonti is a postdoctoral scholar in the Preschool Language and Literacy Lab at The
Ohio State University. Her research interests include child/teacher interactions during shared book
reading, children’s exposure to different genres of text and interventions to increase emergent literacy
acquisition in at-risk populations.

Laura M. Justice is a clinical speech-language pathologist and applied researcher in early childhood
language and literacy development, communication disorders and educational interventions. As a
Professor in the School of Teaching and Learning, Dr Justice directs the Preschool Language and
Literacy Lab at The Ohio State University. Her research interests include preschool language and
literacy acquisition, with a focus on interventions for at-risk populations.

Joan N. Kaderavek is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Early Childhood,

Physical and Special Education at the University of Toledo. Her research interests centre on the early
reading skills and language concepts that impact children’s later reading ability.

Received 16 July 2012; revised version received 30 August 2012.

Address for correspondence: Jennifer Dobbs-Oates, Purdue University, 1202 W. State

St., W. Lafayette, IN 47907, USA. E-mail: jendo@purdue.edu

Copyright © 2012 UKLA