Quality of Teacher–Child Relationships: An Exploration of its Effect on Children’s Emergent Literacy Skills

The current study aims to examine the way in which teachers’ and children’s perceptions about their relationships influence children’s emergent literacy skills. Participants were 913 children and 114 kindergarten teachers within 72 preschool centers from Greece. The measures used were the Student–Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS), the Child Appraisal of the Relationship with the Teacher Scale (CARTS), and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R). Results of multiple regression analyses showed that teacher–child closeness and children’s age were positively associated with children’s receptive language skills, whereas teacher–child dependency was negatively associated with children’s receptive language skills. Collectively, findings highlight the importance of supportive teacher–child relationships and their impact on child’s language development.