Disparities in High‐Level Reading Skills Between Chinese Migrant and Urban Children: The Roles of Migrant Status, Home Literacy Environment, and Parental Expectations

ABSTRACT How to bridge the gap between the reading skills of rural‐to‐urban migrant children and children with urban permanent residence has long been a big challenge in the field of language and family education research. However, very few studies have focused on high‐level reading skills and their association with the home literacy environment and parental expectations. To address this issue, using a battery of reading comprehension and meta‐comprehension tasks, parental expectation and home literacy environment surveys, this study aimed to explore the potential high‐level reading disparities between these two cohorts. Additionally, it examined the influence of migrant status on high‐level reading skills, and the potential mediating roles of the home literacy environment and parental expectations. A total of 163 rural‐to‐urban migrant children and 148 urban permanent resident children, along with their parents, were recruited as participants. Data analysis was conducted using independent samples t ‐tests and Structural Equation Modelling. The results revealed that urban permanent resident children significantly outperformed the rural‐to‐urban migrant group on reading comprehension and comprehension control tasks. In addition, parental expectations and the home literacy environment played a mediating role between migrant status and high‐level reading skills. Crucially, parental expectations proved detrimental to high‐level reading skills if high expectations were held without a supportive home literacy environment. The findings indicate that the association between migrant status and children's high‐level reading skills was fully mediated by the home literacy environment and parental expectations. These results yield valuable theoretical and practical implications for language and family education for migrant populations globally.