Children who read and write at home — whether for assignments or just for fun — are building long-term study and executive function skills, according to a paper from the 91̽»¨.

And while home literacy activities with higher test scores, the new study shows these activities also provide students with tools for lifetime success.

“People who are good students tend to become good employees by being on time and putting forward their best work. All of the things that make you a good student also make you a good employee,” said Nicole Alston-Abel, a Federal Way Public Schools psychologist who conducted the study while pursuing her doctorate at the UW.  “If you make sure your child is academically engaged at home through third grade, kids go on autopilot — they know how to ‘do’ school after that.”

Alston-Abel analyzed data collected by co-author , 91̽»¨emeritus professor of education, who conducted a five-year longitudinal study of academic performance in grades one through seven. As part of that study, Berninger sent home questionnaires asking parents if, and how, they helped their children with reading and writing; Alston-Abel, a former primary teacher, then compared the responses with students’ academic performance.

The published online in May in the Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation.

To collect a range of ages and school experiences, the study followed two groups of students in public elementary schools near the 91̽»¨campus — one cohort of students from first to fifth grade, the other from third to seventh grade. In all, 241 families participated over five years, completing annual questionnaires about how their child felt about reading and writing, what kinds of activities they engaged in at home, and what kind of help parents provided.

The demographics of both cohorts reflected neighborhoods around the university: About 85 percent of students were white or Asian American, and nearly three-fourths of parents had a bachelor’s or advanced degree. A more diverse pool, Alston-Abel said, would be illuminating from a research perspective, but the basic message would remain the same: “The takeaway is still the importance of having a parent involved in developing the habits and models a child needs to be successful. It doesn’t matter what socioeconomic status you come from.”

Among the study’s findings:

• Students spent significantly more time at home reading than writing.
• Without a specific assignment, children were more likely to choose reading as an activity than writing.
• Parents provided more help with writing than with reading.
• Starting at the intermediate grades (four and up), writing assignments increased, while parent help for writing declined more gradually than for reading.
• About three-fourths of the fifth- and seventh-grade students used a computer for writing assignments.
• Parents of those older students described their children as “fluent” in using a computer for writing homework for 19 percent of the fifth-graders, and 53 percent of the seventh-graders.
• Parent ratings of their student’s “self-regulation,” or ability to stay on task and exhibit other study skills, were associated with academic performance, especially in reading comprehension and written expression.

The authors point out that there is no direct causal link between the responses on the questionnaires and student achievement, but that some patterns do exist. For example, among students whose parents described their lack of focus or unwillingness to help set modest goals, academic achievement was generally lower than among students who stayed on task or learned to prioritize.

The study speaks to the need for a collaborative effort between parents and teachers, Alston-Abel said, especially among marginalized populations, and at a time when kindergarteners, according to Common Core State Standards, are expected to demonstrate basic reading and writing skills.

“Some kids come to kindergarten reading basic ‘sight words,’ and others don’t know their letters. Add up the disadvantages and the demands of the curriculum, and it becomes very apparent that if you don’t have a collaborative effort, for these same kids, that gap is always going to be there,” Alston-Abel said.

Teachers can start by asking parents about how they support their child’s learning at home – like with the kinds of questionnaires used in the study. The responses to open-ended questions about what kinds of reading and writing a child does at home, why, and for how long each week, can then inform instruction. Meanwhile, parents who work with their children, Alston-Abel added, are introducing study skills like time management and impulse control.

The paper provides other tips for parents and teachers on how to work together to develop literacy and study skills. One way is to engage a child in writing at home through journals, a story to a family member, even an email or thank-you note. Another is to look for specific skills to help develop, such as spelling or reading comprehension, but pull back when the child appears able to accomplish more independently. And encourage any opportunity to read or write for fun.

“Academic success is an all-hands-on-deck enterprise,” Alston-Abel said. “Teacher, parent and student all have a part to play. Fostering home-school partnerships that enhance and extend the experience of the learner can lead to life-long habits that foster success.”

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

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For more information, contact Alston-Abel at nalstona@fwps.org.

Grant numbers: HD P50HD071764 and HD25858

The study, published online in , is among the first to identify structural white matter and functional gray matter differences in the brain between children with dyslexia and dysgraphia, and between those children and typical language learners. The researchers say the findings underscore the need to provide instruction tailored to each of these specific learning disabilities, though that is currently not mandated under federal or state law.

“This shows that there’s a brain basis for these different disabilities,” said co-author , a psychologist who heads the 91̽»¨Learning Disabilities Center, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “So they require different diagnoses, and different instruction. We’ve got to start acknowledging this.”

The study involved 40 children in grades 4 to 9, including 17 diagnosed with dyslexia — persisting difficulty with word reading and spelling — and 14 diagnosed with dysgraphia, persisting difficulty with handwriting, along with 9 typical language learners. The children were asked to write the next letter in the alphabet following a letter they were shown, to write the missing letter in a word spelling, to rest without any task, and to plan a text about astronauts.

The children used a developed at the 91̽»¨that allowed researchers to record their writing in real time while their active brain connections were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI.

The three groups differed from each other in written language and cognitive tasks. The control group had more connections, which facilitate functional connections in for language processing and cognitive thinking. By contrast, children with dyslexia and dysgraphia showed less white matter connections and more functional connections to gray matter locations — in other words, their brains had to work harder to accomplish the same tasks.

“Their brains were less efficient for language processing,” said lead author , a 91̽»¨professor of radiology.

The results, Berninger said, show that the two specific learning disabilities are not the same because the white matter connections and patterns and number of gray matter functional connections were not the same in the children with dyslexia and dysgraphia — on either the writing or cognitive thinking tasks.

Federal law guarantees a free and appropriate public education to children with learning disabilities, but does not require that specific types of learning disabilities are diagnosed, or that schools provide evidence-based instruction for dyslexia or dysgraphia. Consequently, the two conditions are lumped together under a general category for learning disabilities, Berninger said, and many schools do not recognize them or offer specialized instruction for either one

“There’s just this umbrella category of learning disability,” said Berninger. “That’s like saying if you’re sick you qualify to see a doctor, but without specifying what kind of illness you have, can the doctor prescribe appropriate treatment?”

“Many children struggle in school because their specific learning disabilities are not identified and they are not provided appropriate instruction,” Berninger said. Recent published in February in Computers & Education shows that computerized instruction has tremendous potential to help time-strapped teachers in regular classrooms provide such instruction for children with dyslexia and dysgraphia, but only if they are correctly diagnosed.

“Dyslexia and dysgraphia are not the only kinds of learning disabilities. One in five students in the United States may have some kind of a specific learning disability,” Berninger said. “We just can’t afford to put 20 percent of children in special education classes. There just aren’t the dollars.”

Other co-authors are , director of the 91̽»¨Integrated Brain Imaging Center; , a 91̽»¨senior fellow in radiology; 91̽»¨research scientists Katie Askren, Paul Robinson and Kevin Yagle; 91̽»¨undergraduate students Desiree Gulliford, Zoe Mestre and Olivia Welker; and William Nagy, a professor of education at Seattle Pacific University.