The NatCen study, 'Fitting It All Together', carried out for the Department of Children, Schools and Families, looked at the type of childcare that families use and the impact it can have on children's home learning.
NatCen found that among two-year olds, those using nurseries or children's centres for 20 to 30 hours did more learning activities with their parents.
However, spending too many hours in a setting appeared detrimental, as those attending for more than 30 hours did fewer activities compared with those who did not attend a nursery or children's centre at all.
Ruth Smith, a senior researcher at NatCen and co-author of the report, said, 'Some of the suggestions were that nurseries and children's centres helped to promote parental involvement and gave parents books and activities to do with their children at home.'
Ruth Smith suggested that parents who had their children in early years settings for more than 30 hours a week either lacked the time to do home learning activities or thought that children did enough activities in nursery.
Steve Alexander, chief executive of the Pre-School Learning Alliance, called the link between early years settings and home learning activities 'an interesting finding' but said there was need for further research.
'The Pre-School Learning Alliance advocates that practitioners should base their activities around others already happening in the home,' Mr Alexander said. 'This requires effective dialogue and partnership between parents and practitioners to ensure considerate development of the child's personal interests within the home and the early years setting.
'Giving practical suggestions for activities that can be replicated at home is also an important role for practitioners.'
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, reiterated the need for further research. She said, 'It is good to see that when two-year-olds were using early years settings they engaged in more learning activities at home with their parents, which demonstrates the effectiveness of frameworks such as the Early Years Foundation Stage in creating links between nursery and the home to support learning.'
NatCen childcare findings
- Over half of children under one are looked after solely by their parents (57 per cent).
- Thirty-six per cent of one- to two-year-olds are looked after solely by their parents, while the most common packages of non-parental care include: early years settings only (21 per cent); informal childcare only (19 per cent); or a combination of the two (15 per cent).
- The majority of three- to four-year-olds attend early years settings - 43 per cent attend just early years settings and 29 per cent combine it with informal childcare.