Early literacy and language are key factors in early childhood, and research underscores the first five years of a child’s life as a critical period in which a child’s relationships and interactions with primary caregivers are highly influential on their cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional development. This highlights the centrality of the parental role and gives weight to this study’s overarching research question, which seeks to identify how parents of kindergarten children perceive and experience their child’s early literacy and language acquisition, and their awareness of their own role in it. Drawing on social constructivist theory in its focus on knowledge as linguistically, socially and culturally constructed, this study adopts a qualitative research methodology. Data was collected through informal, semi-structured, photo-elicitation interviews with twelve parents of kindergartners, and explored their perceptions of early literacy and language development in the earliest years of a child’s life, the learning experiences they provide at home, their understanding of the parental role, and perceived needs and challenges experienced in terms of early literacy, language development and quality interaction. Reflexive thematic analysis provided the framework for data analysis, classification and interpretation. The study’s key findings suggest that participants hold a socioculturally circumscribed, narrow view of early literacy which constrains their own home literacy activities, in turn. They heavily equate early literacy to traditional literacy, with a dedicated focus on letters, numbers and reading, and do not fully grasp the capacity for language learning in the first few years of a child’s life, nor the value of high-quality parent-child verbal interaction. This detracts from the possible benefits to young children in bilingual contexts, such as Malta. Findings suggest that although strongly invested in their child’s education, participants do not recognise the full gamut of the parental role in child early literacy and language development. Furthermore, this study exposes restricted opportunities for young children’s vocabulary and general knowledge acquisition within the home, indicating the need to support parents in expanding their view of what early literacy and language development is, how to go about it within the home learning environment, and why it is significant. The research concludes with a summary of the key findings, their implications for educational stakeholders, and recommendations for further research, policy and service development within the Early Years field.
