Home-Based Reading and Language Play in Primary English Development: Socioeconomic Pathways, Multilingual Realities, and Equity-Oriented Strategies for Sustained Family Participation

Shaikha Al-Subaiei

Abstract: Primary English development is shaped not only by formal instruction but also by the interactional routines through which children hear, use, and rehearse language beyond school. This paper offers a global, theoretically oriented analysis of how home-based activities-especially shared reading sessions and parent-child language games-relate to children?s English proficiency during the primary years. It foregrounds socioeconomic factors that condition feasibility and durability, including time scarcity, housing density, caregiver literacy, stress load, book access, and institutional trust. A hybrid approach is advanced: a critical synthesis of research on home literacy environments, dialogic reading, caregiver talk, family engagement, bilingual development, and digital reading; a proposed original field study comparing dialogic reading routines with low-material language-play routines; and an interpretive implementation inquiry to explain participation patterns in multilingual settings. A mechanism account links structural conditions to proximal processes (conversational turns, expansions, narrative scaffolding, retrieval practice, decontextualized talk, and identity safety) and to outcomes (vocabulary, oral fluency, listening comprehension, narrative competence, and emergent literacy). The paper concludes with an equity-first engagement architecture that prioritizes dignity, multilingual legitimacy, and practicable micro-routines.

Keywords: home literacy environment, dialogic reading, language games, socioeconomic inequality, primary English development

How to Cite?: Shaikha Al-Subaiei, "Home-Based Reading and Language Play in Primary English Development: Socioeconomic Pathways, Multilingual Realities, and Equity-Oriented Strategies for Sustained Family Participation", Volume 15 Issue 2, February 2026, International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), Pages: 284-307, https://www.ijsr.net/getabstract.php?paperid=SR26205093024, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21275/SR26205093024