In a bilingual environment such as Singaporean
Chinese community, the challenge of maintaining Chinese
language and sustaining Chinese culture lies in promoting
the daily use of Chinese language in oral and written forms
among children. Ample evidence showed the effect of the
home language and literacy environment (HLE), on chil￾dren’s language and literacy abilities. This study examined
Singaporean Chinese–English bilingual children’s HLE
and its influence on their Chinese oral and written language
ability. Parents of seventy-six Chinese–English bilingual
preschoolers completed a HLE survey. Children’s Chinese
oral and written language abilities were measured with age
appropriate tasks. Results of the HLE survey revealed that,
on the average, children’s Chinese language and literacy
related activities, either carried out independently or with
parents, were not frequent, but correlated significantly with
children’s oral and written language ability. A set of
regression analyses showed that, after controlling for
family socioeconomic status (SES), children’s language
preference at home made a unique contribution, both to
their Chinese language and literacy related activities and to
their Chinese oral language ability. Similarly, children’s
Chinese language and literacy related activities were found
to make unique contribution to their Chinese written lan￾guage ability after the effect of family SES and language
preference was accounted for, emphasizing the crucial

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• Home Literacy Environment and its Influence on Singaporean Children’s Chinese Oral and Written Language Abilities

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