The general consensus in the field is that when the home language is different from the language of instruction in school then children's literacy attainments could slow down. In this 26‐year review of the literature on children's literacy attainments in low‐ to middle‐income countries, 40 correlational, ethnographic and intervention studies provide the data. We test the ‘home language advantage’ hypothesis where we expect children who speak the same language at home and school to show better literacy learning. We also examine other attributes in the home language and literacy environment (HLLE). Among the multivariate studies, trends differ across countries, age and grade levels, and child measures. Rather than a universal home language advantage, the evidence shows that home language advantage is context‐sensitive. The correlational and ethnographic evidence point to a multiple risk factors model of home and school language disconnection; and the ethnographic and intervention studies provide complementary evidence of both feelings of unease, disempowerment and wish to help among family members, and increased confidence following guided support. Possible underlying mechanisms are examined through parallel synthesis of evidence from multiple research methods on three HLLE dimensions—books‐at‐home, home tutoring and adult literacy practices. The data partially corroborate findings from high‐income countries (e.g. home environments impact literacy development, responsive parenting is present across families) but also bring focus on context‐specific realities. Neither low‐income nor low‐print environments are uniform constraints because communities differ and some homes use available resources more efficiently than others.

We report the associations between phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge in readers of alphasyllabic Kannada. Less fluent 9- to 12-year-olds with lower orthographic knowledge were at floor on phoneme tasks, but more fluent readers, with greater orthographic knowledge, showed significant phonemic awareness. Orthographic knowledge, phoneme awareness, and RAN were independent predictors of reading rate and, together with syllable awareness, predicted individual differences in reading accuracy. Taken together, we suggest that increasing alphasyllabic literacy promotes a dual representation at the syllable and phoneme level and that the analytic processes involved in acquiring orthographic knowledge and mappings with phonology are a universal aspect of reading development across languages.

A robust finding from research in high-income countries is that children living in resource-poor homes are vulnerable to difficulties with language and literacy but less is known about this association in low- and middle-income (LMI) countries. We present a meta-analysis of 6,678 correlations from studies in 43 LMI countries. Overall, the results indicate a small but significant association (r = .08) between home language and literacy environment and children's language and literacy skills. After examining a range of moderators, adult literacy practices and books-at-home had a significantly larger association with children's language and literacy skills than did home tutoring. Studies using customized measures demonstrated a more marked association between home attributes and children's outcomes (r = .14) than studies using a common measure across multiple sites (r = .06). Published studies showed significantly larger associations than unpublished studies, and countries with greater income inequality showed a larger association than relatively egalitarian societies. We conclude that the small overall association should not be taken as support for the absence of, or a vanishingly small relationship between the home learning environment and children's language and literacy skills in LMI countries. Rather, an important factor in detecting this relationship is that assessments must better reflect the nature of homes in different cultures to capture true variation in the population. Such contextually situated measurement would lead to an inclusive conceptualization of home learning environments and can better inform intervention programs to enhance children's educational success, a critical target for many LMI countries. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

We investigated childrens spelling in the alphasyllabic writing system of Kannada, a South Indian language. Kannada represents language at roughly the level of the syllable, but its symbols or akshara can be segmented visually to reveal the consonant and vowel segments within. Having been taught akshara as whole, fourth- and fifth-grade children were poor at constructing complex akshara from their consonant and vowel segments. Analyses of their errors showed confusions between the symbols for phonologically similar consonants, visually based errors, particularly on small diacritic marks, and influences of dialect. Kannada has been considered a transparent writing system, but the challenges that arise in mastering this visuo-spatially complex and extensive orthography suggest that previous studies have missed certain factors that contribute to the ease or difficulty with which a writing system is learned.

Surveys in low- and middle-income (LMI countries) reveal persistently low levels of learning among children in disadvantaged communities. Against this background, our synthesis of ethnographies aims at a fresh interpretation of classroom practices to clarify instruction-related barriers to literacy attainments. The review focuses on the period from 1990, the year of the UN Declaration of Education for All, to 2014. Sixteen studies focusing on children up to Grade 4 from eleven LMI countries met criteria for methodological rigour. The synthesis, structured within socio-cultural and psycholinguistic frameworks, examined vignettes of teacher- and child-initiated talk and activities related to language and literacy learning. Trends captured include instructions that are light on explanation, skewed towards reinforcing orthographic knowledge, and leaving the advancing of children’s broader linguistic and general knowledge to incidental learning. Learning from the peer group is common and, in bi- and multilingual settings, use of home language as a learning resource is uncommon. It is proposed that a cultural analysis of choral lessons, writing for learning, peer tutoring and community-specific preferences for language of instruction is required to understand whether embedding inference-focused interventions within these practices will promote more effective teaching and learning.