Home literacy practices and preschool children's emergent writing skills: An initial investigation

•Results of the current study indicate that practices in the home include writing related activities and that these activities have an impact on children's writing development.•A sizeable proportion of parents in this study reported engaging in a variety of writing activities fairly frequently.•Parental teaching predicted a child's letter writing, spelling, and spontaneous writing skills.•Child independent practices predicted letter writing and spontaneous writing but not spelling.

Home literacy practices are known to facilitate children's oral language and reading skills. In this study, we extend previous work by examining the amount and types of writing-related home practices that parents engage in with their young preschool children. Next, we examined the relation between these home practices and the development of writing skills in 4- and 5-year old preschool children. Correlations between parental teaching activities and child independent activities and letter writing, spelling, and spontaneous writing were statistically significant.Results from the multi-level modeling indicated that parental teaching predicted a child's letter writing, spelling, and spontaneous writing skills whereas child independent practices predicted letter writing and spontaneous writing but not spelling. Results of the current study clearly indicate that practices in the home include writing related activities and that these activities have an impact on children's writing development. Implications of this research and directions for future research are discussed.