Examination of the link between parents' practices on early literacy and children's word and print awareness skills

In this study, it was aimed to examine the relationship between parents' practices about early literacy and children's word and print awareness skills. The research was carried out through using the correlational research model which is a quantitative research method. The sample of the study is composed of parents of 224 children selected through simple random sampling method from 60-84 month old children who were currently attending to pre-schools in the centre of Aksaray province and central villages; and 180 children selected through convenient sampling method among these families. In this study, Early Literacy Questionnaire was used in order to evaluate the practices of parents about early literacy; Word and Print Awareness Assessment Tool was used to determine the level of word and writing awareness of children; and the Teacher-Family Personal Information Form was used in order to learn the information about family-child-teacher. The data analysis was carried out with SPSS 24.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) program through independent samples t-test, one way ANOVA, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis H. Test and Pearson Correlation Analysis. As a result of the research, it was seen that parents found the activities related to storybooks and structured activities more important and applied them; and the frequency of parents' practice of literacy activities at home was not significant depending on gender, age and children's birth order. It was found that the frequency of parents' practice of early literacy activities varies depending on children's pre-school background, the duration of pre-school education, and the educational status of the parents. It was stated that the total scores of children's word and print awareness and the sub-score of children's writing concepts were high and the sub-score of their word recognition was moderate. It was also seen that children's levels of word and print awareness did not vary with age; however, it varied significantly depending on gender, pre-school background, duration of pre-school education, children's birth order, parental education and teacher experience. There is a significant variation found in favour of the importance that parents put on early literacy activities and the frequency of practising literacy activities; and a low level of relationship with children's word-print awareness skills. It was stated that there is a positive and low-level relationship between the frequency of parents' literacy awareness activities with their children and children's word-print awareness skills.