Abstract :
[en] Home literacy environment is important for children’s literacy development, which is a foundation for their school success. While most of the home literacy environment (HLE) studies, until recently, focused on monolingual and bilingual children, there has been a growing interest to study multilingual HLE. This mixed-method study contributes to this line of research by examining the HLE of multilingual preschool children in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a trilingual country situated in the heart of Europe. In a quantitative questionnaire survey of 595 parents and 32 qualitative in-depth interviews, we aimed to identify significant factors of the HLE for early reading and print knowledge. Quantitative results indicate that the number of books in the home, parent reading interest, and parent involvement significantly predicted children’s early reading reported by parents. However, only parent involvement is a common indicator both for reading and print knowledge. The qualitative results of the parent interviews indicate the following themes: number of books and other literacy resources, child's agency, parent involvement as shared reading (meaning, code, and well-being), and phonological awareness. The most distinct theme that emerged is shared reading as a well-being moment that mostly occurs in the families’ home languages. The multilingual environment emerges as highly relevant for all the identified activities. Based on its mixed-method design, this novel study addresses an internationally shared research interest by examining HLE factors for multilingual children, and its results provide important information internationally while placing Luxembourg on the map as a multilingual environment. This study is also valuable in provoking more reflection on what literacy is for multilingual children, which we find to be best defined as “background knowledge” that goes beyond the classical definition of literacy for monolingual children (O. García, personal communication, May and July 2024).
