Abstract
Although it is well established that reading with young children supports early language and literacy development, few studies have focused on the importance of parental beliefs about reading with infants. The current study, which sheds light on parental beliefs had three main aims. The first was to examine practices of shared reading in infancy (birth to 1 year old), while the second, sought to examine parents’ views on benefits of and potential barriers to reading with infants. The third aim was to explore how parents’ beliefs about reading, and their own enjoyment of reading, may influence the early home literacy environment they create for their infants. Drawing upon a mixed methods approach, comprising surveys and interviews with parents of infants (n = 31), this paper highlights the importance of parents’ own enjoyment of reading. The findings, which are considered from a bioecological perspective, indicate that parents’ enjoyment of reading was significantly and positively associated with the number of children’s books in their home, and the frequency of reading with their infant, as well as their hope for their child’s future enjoyment of reading. Parents noted that one of the main benefits of reading with their infants related to socio-emotional development and the one-to-one time, rather than the language and literacy benefits, which constitute the focus of much research in this area. The findings further point to an intergenerational transfer of a love of reading.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 158-184 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Journal of Early Childhood Literacy |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3 Sep 2022 |
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors received funding from Children's Books Ireland and the Mary Immaculate College Research Seed Fund in support of this research.
Funders | Funder number |
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Children's Books Ireland | |
Mary Immaculate College |
Keywords
- early home literacy environment
- infants
- parental beliefs
- reading