The Relationship Between Parental Mindsets and Children’s Reading Abilities in Elementary School

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Acquiring the foundational skills to sound out letters and read words is a major milestone in the primary school years that paves the way for future learning and academic success. Children’s attitudes toward reading are thought to play an important role in this learning process; studies in early elementary school report more positive attitudes toward reading in children with higher reading scores (Swanson, 1982; McGeown et al., 2015). While this attitude-achievement relationship is well established, few studies have taken a comprehensive, multivariate approach to pinpoint the different factors surrounding this relationship (Petscher et al., 2010). Establishing such factors could help identify possible targets for interventions to improve children’s reading attitudes and word reading abilities. Here we focused on understanding the attitude-achievement relationship in the broader context of 1) children’s home literacy environment and 2) parents’ views on the benefits of failure and hard work, as well as their views on the malleability of intelligence and reading ability.

Forty-seven incoming first-graders participated in an online session with reading assessments (Woodcock-Johnson IV Letter-Word Identification and Word Attack) and a structured interview measuring their attitudes toward reading. Parents completed surveys on (1) their children’s reading attitudes, (2) home literacy environment, and (3) their own views on the benefits of failure and hard work, as well as their views on the malleability of intelligence and reading ability. We found that stronger word reading abilities, more positive parent-reported reading attitudes, and more time spent reading for pleasure at home were all associated with one another (Figure 1). Children’s word reading abilities were also negatively associated with parents’ views; that is, parents of children with lower reading scores were more likely to believe that failure is enhancing, that hard work improves performance, and that intelligence and reading ability can change over time (Figure 2). Finally, parents had an accurate perception of their children’s reading attitudes (r = 0.41, p = 0.005, between parent-reported surveys and child-reported interviews).

Our findings highlight two important points. First, children’s home literacy environment, specifically, the amount of reading they pursue for pleasure, seems to be an underlying third factor in the well-established attitude-achievement relationship. Secondly, parents seem to be highly attuned to their children’s reading attitudes and word reading abilities, going as far as shifting their own views in an effort to foster their children’s academic growth. Critically, these relationships were observed at the end of kindergarten, just one year into formal schooling. These findings therefore emphasize the importance of 1) building a foundation of positive reading experiences from an early age and 2) understanding how children’s reading attitudes, their word reading abilities, and their parents’ views dynamically interact over development. As parents’ views could serve as targets for reading interventions, future studies should investigate whether children with low reading scores benefit from their parents’ positive shift in views. It is possible that in later school years, positive parental views may eventually drive improvement in children’s reading attitudes and word reading abilities.

Authors

• Megumi Emily Takada, Stanford University
  Presenting Author

• Patrick M. Donnelly, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Liesbeth Gijbels, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christopher J. Lemons, Stanford University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jason D. Yeatman, Stanford University
  Non-Presenting Author