This study examined the relationship between students' reading attainment scores and key family environmental factors in Chinese and non-Chinese communities. Six family environmental factors were considered: parents' evaluation of their offspring's early literacy skills, early home literacy activities (EHLA), reading activities involving parents and their children, parental attitudes toward reading and their reading habits, and parents' reports of the numbers of their own and children's books in the home. The Chinese communities were those in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, each of which was matched statistically and numerically with national samples from non-Chinese communities around the world. The reading attainment of all participating students was formally assessed using standardized procedures in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006 reading attainment survey. Although PIRLS did not report markedly different patterns of attainment scores across the cultural divides, IDB Analyzer and hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that Chinese community parents tended to view their children's early literacy skills highly but engaged in fewer reading activities at home with their children than did their non-Chinese counterparts. Parents' attitudes toward reading in the Chinese community were relatively moderate, and the books provided at home were fewer than in non-Chinese community homes. Nevertheless, the number of children's books and books at home were still important predictors overall for both communities, explaining 1 to 9 percent of the variance in students' reading attainment once children's early literacy skills had been controlled for. Although there were differences between two communities on the six family reading factors, the regression pattern indicates more similarities than differences between the Chinese and non-Chinese communities.
