Influence of Early Literacy Parental Involvement on Science Achievement of Junior Secondary School Students in Nigeria

Abstract

Influence of early literacy on science achievement of Junior Secondary School students was examined in this study. The sample consisted of 360 Junior Secondary School II (JSSII) students(162 females and 198 males, mean age 13.47years, SD= 0.746) randomly selected from 12 co-educational junior secondary schools in Osun state, Nigeria. An achievement test (Integrated Science Achievement Test, ‘INSAT’) and a questionnaire (Early Literacy Parent Involvement Questionnaire, ‘ELIPIQ’) were used for data collection. The Cronbach coefficient alpha value for the questionnaire was found to be 0.62 while Reliability estimates of 0.74 was established for the achievement test. Findings revealed that: of the 360 parents involved in this study, only about 20.8% were highly involved in their children’s early literacy acquisition; parental involvement in literacy acquisition of boys was more than that of girls, though this difference was not significant; a positive relationship between parental involvement in early literacy acquisition and students’ science achievement was found and, parental involvement in children’s early literacy acquisition predicted only 0.280 (28%) of the variation of achievement in science (R2 = 0.280) and a positive but weak (r =0.183) significant relationship between parents’ educational attainment and their involvement in literacy acquisition of their children was also found. It was therefore recommended that parents should be more involved in early literacy acquisition of their children by spending time to read with them, share stories, recite rhymes, jingles, poetry, and so on.