Sharing reading for pleasure
As every teacher knows, one of the most important things a parent can do to help their children learn is to read with them and inspire a love of books. But are parents and children giving shared reading the priority it deserves?
The results of independent new research commissioned to coincide with Booktime 2007 show that parents and children aren’t giving shared reading the priority it deserves. The survey of more than 1,800 UK parents paints a revealing portrait of modern childhood. Findings include:
- Primary school aged children spend the majority of their leisure time either alone or with friends rather than with their family. Top three activities include watching television, playing outside and time with friends.
- Children spend twice as much time watching television versus enjoying a book with an adult (7 hours, 46 minutes compared to just 3 hours 25 minutes each week).
- When reading does happen, mums take the lead with 73% being the chief reader compared to only 16% of dads.
- The more dads earn, the more likely they are to read with their child; the more mums earn, the less likely they are to read with their child.
- Children spend little time on family-focused activities (such as enjoying a meal together, sharing a book at bedtime; helping mum and dad with chores).
- Booktime 2007 research: 1,842 UK parents of primary school aged children (representative of UK population) took part in the research between 20 August 2007 and 12 September 2007. The independent research was conducted by Tickbox.net via online and telephone research. Questions were developed in conjunction with some of the UK’s leading university academics who specialise in literacy.
Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood: How The Modern World Is Damaging Our Children…And What We Can Do About It, comments on the findings: ‘When parents are frantically juggling work and domestic responsibilities, children often rely on the television for company. But what they really need is real-life contact with the loving adults in their lives - sharing and talking about a book together is a lovely way to provide this contact.’
Based on this research, Booktime 2007 sent 700,000 children starting school a free copy of children’s classic Funnybones by Janet and Allan Ahlberg to encourage parents and carers to spend time sharing a book with their children. Every primary school in England has received a free resource pack of activity sheets and session ideas showing how to have fun with this book in school. If you haven’t seen it you can download it from the Booktime website: www.booktime.pearson.com.
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