According to the latest research conducted by Murdoch University in Australia, 38 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 8, and 17 percent of children between the ages of 9 and 11 have parents who read with them. If parents stop reading with their children after their kids learn to read, it decelerates the emotional and cognitive development of the child and weakens their future reading habits. Publishing house Editor-in-Chief Çağla Acar, who believes that most parents stop reading with their children because they feel schools already encourage the habit, evaluated the results of the research.
According to the research that examined the emotions and behavior of children and parents who read books aloud together, most parents stop reading with their children after the children learn to read. As a result of this switch, children then go on to lack quality time with their families, while their vocabulary, pronunciation, visualization, analytical skills and reading habits also suffer. Researchers at Murdoch University, who studied a total of 220 Australian children between 6 and 12 from 21 schools and their parents, found that 87 percent of the children and 82 percent of the parents enjoy reading books aloud. While reading together, the children said they are happy and have fun and see it as a luxury or a reward instead of a normal daily activity. Some 63 percent of them want to read more books more often with their parents. However, 27 percent implied that no one at home reads books to them. Only 18 percent of the other 73 percent said their parents often read aloud.
As children grow, parents read less
While the study found that the reading rate of parents of children between the ages of 6 and 8 is 38 percent, this rate decreased to 17 percent in children between 9 and 11. Parents believe that their children's reading habit will develop by itself or through their schools after they learn to read; however, the number of the children who say they regularly read books with their teachers is very low. This situation negatively affects language development and prospective reading habits along with emotional and cognitive development. Only 43 percent of the children in the study evaluated themselves as independent readers, and more than one-third of them say they read books at home or prefer totally different activities.
Parents unsure about older readers
Noting parents should not believe that activities in school are enough to build good reading habits in their children, Çağla Acar highlighted that children listening to books read by their parents' safe and reliable voices is very effective for creating strong familial bonds. Acar stressed: "Children become more interested in books, such as novels and stories, with more pages as they grow. Parents are often indecisive about how they will approach and encourage the reading habits of their older children; however, many books generally known as children books address both children and adults. Families can determine what types of books they like and read them together, forming a reading club in their family; then, they can talk about the parts that affected them positively or negatively and internalize the book that they read, giving examples from their daily lives. As a result, children will both enjoy reading books and also realize fun it is to read books with their family."
