June 2010     New research highlights the role of family in supporting literacy.  Findings from new National Literacy Trust (UK) research show that family encouragement to read has an enormous impact on children and young people’s attitudes towards reading and their reading test scores.

The research reveals that:

• Children who aren’t encouraged to read by their mother are three times more likely to say ‘reading is boring’ than those who are encouraged to read a lot (34% vs 12%)
• Children are twice as likely to read outside of class if they are encouraged to read by their mother or father a lot (fathers - 46% vs. 27%, mothers – 44% vs. 18%)
• 90% of above average readers receive encouragement to read from their mums, while only 80% of below average readers receive encouragement

Although the research reveals a clear link between family support for reading and stronger reading skills, it found that one in four children don’t have books of their own at home and nearly half (46%) rarely or never talk about reading with their family.

8 in 10 young people say they get some encouragement to read from their mother, compared with only 7 in 10 from their father. Fathers are also twice as likely as mothers to not be seen reading by their children at all (26% vs 12%).

From information provided by The Literacy Trust, UK, June 1, 2010.

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