Maternal beliefs, mother-child interaction, and child's literacy: Comparison of independent and collaborative text writing between two social groups

We investigated the nature of mother-child collaborative text writing, maternal pedagogical beliefs, and children's independent text writing in two socioeconomic strata (SES) groups. Collaborative writing among 40 mothers and their second grade children, equally divided between low SES (LSES) and high SES (HSES), was observed at home. Maternal beliefs were extracted from open interviews following the collaboration. Children's independent text writing was assessed prior to the interaction. LSES children were less autonomous in the writing interaction and discussed spelling more frequently than genre elements, than HSES children. No difference was found between LSES and HSES maternal pedagogical beliefs, but LSES mothers expressed more negative beliefs about their children as learners. Results showed moderately high correlations between type of collaborative writing, maternal beliefs, and children's independent writing level, especially among the LSES group. Implications for children's development from a sociocultural perspective are discussed.