Relations of parental play beliefs with children's executive functions, reading, and mathematics

This study examined how parental play support and academic focus differentially predicted kindergarten children's longitudinal development in executive functions, word reading, and mathematics skills. Participants were 150 Hong Kong kindergarten children (47.3 % girls; mean age of 4.4 years at Time 1 and 5.4 years at Time 2) and their parents. At Time 1, parents reported demographic information and rated children's executive functions through questionnaire. Children were administered behavioral tasks assessing their word reading and mathematics. One year later, at Time 2, the parents rated children's executive functions, and children completed the same behavioral tasks again. Results from a path analytic model revealed the indirect relation between parental play support at Time 1 and word reading at Time 2, mediated through executive functions at Time 1, was positive and significant. However, parental academic focus was unrelated to children's academic skills. The results suggest fostering parental play support might facilitate kindergarten children's cognitive skills, academic learning, and holistic development. • Parental play support predicted child future word reading via executive functions. • Parental academic focus was unrelated to children's word reading and mathematics. • Children's early executive functions and mathematics predicted later word reading.