PROMOTING PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN LEARNING More than half a century of literacy research, dating back to 1966, shows again and again that the interactions young readers enjoy at home with caregivers—from conversations to storytelling to read-alouds—play a significant role in academic success and beyond. Children who are read aloud to at home develop a stronger vocabulary, more background knowledge, better expressive and receptive language abilities, and stronger phonological awareness and early-literacy skills (Durkin, 1966; Bus et al., 1995; Neuman & Celano, 2006).
Book reading allows parents and children to derive meaning from text in relation to their own lives (Neuman, 2016, p. 118).
The impact that families and caregivers have on reading skills continues long past preschool age. Parent involvement in child reading is positively associated with reading achievement for fifth-graders (Koepp et al., 2022), 13-year-olds (Price & Kalil., 2018), and 15-year-olds (Schubert & Becker, 2010). Researchers posit that, when caregivers and children share books, they enhance the quality of their reading in the long term, making for frequent conversation and increased caregiver understanding of a child’s learning (Fletcher & Reese, 2005). Family involvement in learning connects the world inside and outside of school and makes the school day more relevant to students—increasing developmental outcomes for children (Weiss et al, 2006). What’s more, when parents are encouraged to read with their children at home, children become more interested in reading as a concept and more driven to become readers themselves (Armbruster, 2001).
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