Sixty-five first graders from various sociocultural backgrounds and their parents/caregivers participated in a study designed to look at the relationship between home literacy environments and children's motivations for reading. Each child completed a Motivations for Reading interview, and parents of all children were interviewed regarding their ideas about the importance of reading, their ideas about their child's emerging literacy skills, and their quantitative estimates of the child's frequency of interactions with printed materials. The children's responses suggested that first-graders have generally positive feelings about reading, regardless of sociocultural background or the child's gender. Frequency of exposure to and interaction with printed materials did not predict differences in the child's self-reported motivation. Both African-American and European-American parents reported similar experiences for their children and similar ideas regarding their child's emerging competencies. Parents from lower income backgrounds differed from parents of middle income backgrounds in their reports of reasons for which reading is important, their ideas about their children's emerging competencies, and their reports of the children's frequency of interaction with printed materials. The results suggest that children's motivations for reading early in the first grade are consistently strong, although there are some consistent differences in the home literacy environments for these children. (Author)