Author Description

Data from the fifth sweep of Britain's National Child Development Study were analyzed to investigate the relationship between parents' literacy and numeracy problems, other parental characteristics, and their children's reading and mathematics abilities. Strong relationships were found between parents' self-reported literacy problems and their children's abilities, which were measured using reading and mathematics assessments. Where parents had reading problems, twice as many children were in the bottom quartile range of reading scores, compared with children whose parents did not report problems. Parents with any of the self-reported problems were more likely to have children who had low math and reading scores. Parental literacy problems were more closely associated with children's low reading scores than with low math scores. There was a strong relationship between children's low math scores and parental numeracy problems. Seventy-two percent of children from families where parents had reading problems and who were in the lowest income group and 54 percent of children from families where parents had reading problems and who had no school qualifications were in the lowest reading score groups. Where parents reported numeracy difficulties and had no school qualifications and were in the lowest income group, 79 percent of children were in the lowest score group for the math or reading tests. (YLB)