Most parents want more time reading to young children: Study

Most parents with young children wish they had more time to read to them and a third lack the confidence to do so, according to a new survey.

The study, commissioned by the children’s publisher Ladybird and run by Censuswide, found that 33% of parents with children under five wished they had more confidence to read with their child. Reading out loud and doing character voices were cited as reasons for doubting their confidence.

Of the more than 1,000 parents surveyed, three-quarters said that they wished they had more time for shared reading. The study, conducted between late June and early July this year, also found that 77% of parents who read with their children do so before bedtime – between 6pm and 8pm – with low levels of joint reading reported at other times of the day.

Reading with children is about “quality over quantity”, the children’s author Laura Henry-Allain said in response to the survey results. “It could be that you have a book that your child wants to be read again and again, and that’s absolutely fine,” she said, adding that parents should not feel guilty about the amount of time they spend reading with their child. “Make it enjoyable, make it fun and don’t make it a chore.”

“It’s much better to read for a little bit than not to read at all,” the children’s author SF Said told the Guardian. “Just 10 minutes a day can be enough to make the difference.”

The research also found that 93% of parents feel it is important to read with their child, and 88% agree that reading with their child is about shared enjoyment and is not a chore.

For parents who lack confidence, Henry-Allain suggested “reading in private with their child and not in a public space”. Said advised that “reading with your kids isn’t about being a brilliant performer – it’s about sharing something with them, something that is fun.”

Eighty-one per cent of parents saw one of the benefits of reading as enjoying quality time together, while 68% said that bonding was one of the main reasons to read with their child.

Of the survey respondents with children aged one and under, 36% felt that their child was too young to read to.

Henry-Allain, whose forthcoming book My Family, Your Family explores the differences between families, added that “it is important that we have these discussions with children at an early age”. This means they can “step into the worlds of children who come from different families and have that understanding and appreciation as well”.

Source: The Guardian