Is There a Connection between Reading to Children and the Child’s Involvement in Reading Activities? / Postoji li veza između čitanja djeci i uključenosti djeteta u aktivnosti čitanja?

Abstract

The ability to read is vital. Reading paves the way to success in school, which can
build self-confidence and motivate your child to set high expectations from life.
Children are “learners” by nature and they learn from the prenatal phase. The
child learns by observing the environment and imitating the role models. Likewise,
children learn to read encouraged by examples from the environment. Reading
aloud to children is the best way to get them interested in reading. By reading,
they will grow to love stories and books. Eventually they will want to read on their
own. To research parental involvement in reading activities with children, we used
Questionnaire of the Hanen Center for Evaluating Parental Involvement in the
Development of Reading Skills. We wanted to investigate if there is a statistically
significant difference in parents’ engagement in reading to children and with
children with regard to their parents’ academic education, number of parents who
live with a child, and financial income in the household. We also wanted to find out
if there is a statistically significant association between parental involvement in the
child’s reading activities and their child’s involvement in reading activities. There
were 716 respondents. Findings indicated that demographic data, such as parents’
academic education, number of parents who live with a child, and financial income
in the household have a statistically significant impact on parental involvement in
reading activities with their children, but also on their child’s involvement in reading
activities. The results show statistically significant association between parental
involvement in the child’s reading activities and their child’s involvement in reading
activities, as expected. This paper points out the importance of reading to children, no matter their age, since the use of those kind of activities has been proven to be
effective in promoting literacy skills, in previous researches as well as in this one.
Key words: parental involvement; promoting reading skills; reading; reading activities;
reading skills.

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Sažetak
Sposobnost čitanja iznimno je važna vještina. Čitanje utire put uspjehu u školi, koji
može izgraditi samopouzdanje i motivirati dijete da postavi visoka očekivanja za
život. Djeca uče čitati potaknuta primjerima iz okoline. Čitanje naglas najbolji je
način da djecu zainteresirate za čitanje. Čitajući djeci, potičete ih da samostalno
počnu čitati te da na kraju zavole aktivnost čitanja. Kako bi se istražila roditeljska
uključenost u aktivnosti čitanja djeci, korišten je Upitnik Hanen centra za procjenu
uključenosti roditelja u aktivnosti koje potiču razvoj vještina čitanja. U istraživanju
je sudjelovalo 716 ispitanika. Rezultati ukazuju da demografski podatci, kao što
su akademsko obrazovanje roditelja, broj roditelja koji žive s djetetom i financijski
prihod u kućanstvu imaju statistički značajan utjecaj na uključenost roditelja u
aktivnosti čitanja vlastitoj djeci, ali i na uključenost njihova djeteta u aktivnosti
čitanja. Rezultati pokazuju statistički značajnu povezanost između uključenosti
roditelja u aktivnosti čitanja djetetu i uključenosti djeteta u aktivnosti čitanja,
kao što je bilo očekivano. Ovim radom naglašava se važnost čitanja djeci, bez
obzira na njihovu dob jer je dokazano da je čitanje, kao aktivnost, učinkovito u
promicanju pismenosti.
Ključne riječi: čitalačke aktivnosti; čitanje; poticanje čitalačkih vještina; uključenost
roditelja; vještina čitanja.