Family context and children's early literacy skills: The role of marriage quality and emotional expressiveness of mothers and fathers

- Quality marital relationships increase positive expressiveness in the family which relates to better child literacy skills.
- The effect of marital satisfaction on family positive expressiveness was greater for fathers than mothers.
- The influence of family positive expressiveness on home learning activities was stronger for fathers than mothers.

The marital relationship is critical for the emotional structure of the family and has implications for children's socioemotional and behavioral outcomes. However, little is known about the effect that the marital relationship has on children's academic achievement. The current study considers whether the family emotional environment and the home learning environment (HLE) that parents provide are mediators in the relation between marital functioning and preschool-aged children's early literacy skills. Results suggest that the marital relationship relates to children's early literacy skills through the influence of both positive and negative emotional expressiveness on the HLE. We also found that some of these family processes are different for mothers and fathers. The impact of the marital relationship on positive expressiveness and the effect of emotional expressiveness on HLE-related parenting were greater for fathers than mothers. These findings underscore the significance of marital and family processes when considering children's early literacy skills.