Effect of quality of teacher-child conversation on Hong Kong K1 children’s preliteracy skills

Lai Yi NG

Research output: ThesisMaster's Theses

Abstract

Objectives: The present study investigated 1) whether K1 children experiencing higher quality teacher-child conversation at preschool would achieve significantly better in oral language, morphological awareness and phonological awareness after statistically controlling their non-verbal reasoning ability, socio-economic status, home literacy environment and the physical literacy environment of their preschool, 2) whether oral language, morphological awareness and phonological awareness could explain certain variance of children’s word reading as earlier as at when they were in K1. Methods: Sixty K1 children from 6 local kindergartens participated in the study. Half of them came from preschools that scored low in quality of teacher-child conversation while the other half came from preschools that scored moderate. Their oral language, morphological awareness, phonological awareness, word reading and non-verbal reasoning ability were assessed through online survey. Their parents filled out an online questionnaire about their socioeconomic status and home literacy environment. Principal investigator visited each preschool once and rated their physical literacy environment. Results: Results showed that 1) there was a robust effect of quality of teacher-child conversation on children’s performance in oral language, morphological awareness, phonological awareness and word reading, 2) oral language, morphological awareness and phonological awareness significantly correlated with word reading, but the effect of phonological awareness became non-significant when it entered the multiple regression model following oral language and morphological awareness. Conclusion: Findings in this study suggest that implementation of high-quality teacher-child conversation within preschool programs is essential to prepare young children for learning to read, more conversational strategies training is thereby needed for pre-service and in-service preschool educators in Hong Kong. Findings also suggest that at early stage of language acquisition (i.e. K1), oral language and morphological awareness may override the role of phonological awareness in predicting reading given the high covariance among them when they were entered in the same model. Therefore, practitioners can devote more efforts in promoting children’s oral language and morphological awareness when they are in K1. All rights reserved.
Original languageEnglish
QualificationMaster of Social Sciences
Awarding Institution
  • The Education University of Hong Kong
Supervisors/Advisors
  • TONG, Xiuhong 佟秀紅, Supervisor
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Keywords

  • Quality of teacher-child conversation
  • Oral language
  • Morphological awareness
  • Phonological awareness
  • Word reading
  • Alt. title: 師生對話的質量對香港 K 1幼兒的前讀寫技能的影響
  • Theses and Dissertations
  • Thesis (M.Soc.Sc(Psy))--The Education University of Hong Kong, 2020.

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