Enhancing Preschoolers’ Reading Interest and Habits through Home-School Collaboration: Design and Implementation of Reading Curriculum in Chinese Kindergartens

Authors

  • Lei Wu

    Faculty of Education, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi Selangor 43600, Malaysia
  • Kamariah Abu Bakar

    Faculty of Education, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi Selangor 43600, Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i4.8541
Received: 23 January 2025 | Revised: 25 March 2025 | Accepted: 26 March 2025 | Published Online: 10 April 2025

Abstract

This study investigates the phenomenon of family-school partnership practices and their contributions to language development through reading participation of Chinese preschool children, using Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and application-based models of language development, especially concerning the domain of social interaction and language skills development. This study utilises an integrated reading programme that merges the home and school contexts aimed at creating a positive macro linguistic environment for language and reading interest development. The curriculum focuses on phonological, semantic, and pragmatic features of speech in the reading materials designed to illustrate various features of Mandarin Chinese such as the complexity of characters, tone patterns, and syntactic structures appropriate for preschoolers. Through a Design and Development Research approach, data were gathered from kindergartens by means of questionnaires (n = 300), semi-structured interviews (n = 30), and observations of lessons (n = 20). Analysing the data collected through multiple methods allowed me to understand how children’s language development, specifically vocabulary learning, syntactic variety, and discourse development were impacted by different reading environments. The analysis indicated notable changes in the children’s language development, with 45% of participants evidencing heightened metalinguistic awareness, communicative competence, and vocabulary use. The integrated home-school environment which supported the children’s language development led to improvement of the quality of linguistic input (Collaboration Quality Index increased from 0.65 to 0.88, p < 0.01), which in turn enhanced language understanding and expression. Theoretically and practically, these findings carry significant meaning pertaining to official language policies within early childhood care and education in China especially.

Keywords:

Home-School Collaboration; Reading Interest; Reading Habits; Preschool Education; Curriculum Design; Language Acquisition

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How to Cite

Wu, L., & Abu Bakar, K. (2025). Enhancing Preschoolers’ Reading Interest and Habits through Home-School Collaboration: Design and Implementation of Reading Curriculum in Chinese Kindergartens. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(4), 547–561. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i4.8541

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 4 (April 2025): In Progress

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Article

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Copyright © 2025 Lei Wu, Kamariah Abu Bakar

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.