Mothers and families grow readers for life

My colleague reading with her 5-year-old son at home

Reading mothers – a workshop my colleague Dina attended last week had us chatting this morning before work.  This workshop was presented by some Russian colleagues, Tatiana Zhukova and Larissa Valulina, who quoted some Russian research showing that when the mothers read for pleasure themselves in the home, their children are more likely to read for pleasure as well.  These librarians modelled a programme they had seen in Shanghai where mothers came into the library to read to small groups. The outcome of this was an increase in borrowing throughout the primary school.

Researcher Margaret Marga encourages parents to read to their children even beyond the age when they can read for themselves. “We should continue reading with our children until they no longer wish to share reading with us, ensuring that these experiences are enjoyable, as they can influence children’s future attitudes toward reading, as well as building their confidence and competence as readers. It is worth the effort to find time to share this experience with our children in the early years and beyond,” (2017). She lists the benefits of reading with your children as:
* facilitating enriched language exposure
* fostering the development of listening skills, spelling, reading comprehension and vocabulary
* establishing essential foundational literacy skills
* foster positive attitudes toward reading.

My older son reading to my younger son

I attended a workshop at the same time run by a colleague from Croatia, Anamarija Dujmovic,  and one of their strategies was to create backpacks with about 10 books in for the whole family. The students could check out the bag and all its contents for four weeks. Inside there were books for the parents, adult fiction and parenting books, books for younger children and picture books. research has been conducted on the reading environment in the home and the impact it has on student’s reading behaviours. “The data seemed to demonstrate that positive reading environment highly persuaded students to cultivate good reading habits in themselves. For instance, parents who are avid readers themselves will normally nurture positive attitudes to reading as much as possible in their children,”  (Morni & Sahari, 2013, p. 422). Developing a home library with a range of materials was one of the recommendations from this study,  (Morni & Sahari, 2013, p. 423). This can be very challenging when you are not in your home country. Our school library has the opportunity to proactively encourage families to develop their own environment of home reading.

Dina and I have really enjoyed our “Friends of the library” programme and would like to expand it next year so that we give more to the mothers involved. We think these ideas might be useful. Plus we could try to run a book club. So far to date, our friends of the library friendship has been the Mum’s volunteering to help us out. This might be a great way to help them.

 

References

Merga, M. K. (2017, August 27). Research shows the importance of parents reading with children – even after children can read. Retrieved May 17, 2018, from The Conversation – website: http://theconversation.com/research-shows-the-importance-of-parents-reading-with-children-even-after-children-can-read-82756

Morni, A., & Sahari, S. (2013). The impact of living environment on reading attitudes [PDF]. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 101, 415-425. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042813021101

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