Family reading culture

Family reading culture provides a foundation for children’s reading habits, because the act of reading books is learned through socialization. Leafing through texts, borrowing books and talking about texts are all habits that are conveyed from one person to another within a family or some other community. Unfortunately, a child may also be socialized to a culture of no reading if books do not play a role in his or her life. Several studies (Swain & Cara 2017) have noticed that reading habits among close adults, including parents, grandparents and siblings, affect a child’s acquisition of reading habits. If the family adults and other close people are enthusiastic readers, the family reading culture is active. On the other hand, a child may have access to plenty of books, but a lack of shared reading routines in the family provides an insufficient model for reading. The number of books owned by a family has been considered, in international literacy research, a factor that influences the literacy of children and young people (f.e. Leino, Nissinen, Puhakka & Rautopuro 2017), but it may not be a perfectly comprehensive way to describe family reading culture (Deitcher, Arama & Goldberg 2021).

Family reading culture is influenced by several factors, and there is not a single right way or time to build up a family reading history. Campaigns and news headlines that promote the importance of literacy may help to bring it up in public discussion, which may, however, induce pressures on parents. A parent may find it difficult to choose literature that his or her child finds interesting and supports the child’s development, and to pick a suitable moment for reading (Daniels, Salley, Walker & Bridges 2021). In addition to that, not all families have equal possibilities to support their children’s development through literature. The Finnish maternity package now comes with a baby’s first book, after a short period of time when it was not included. It also has instructions for supporting the development of the child’s cognition, emotions, language and social life through literature. The family structure, wealth and health, along with other social factors, still strongly affect children’s well-being even in Finland (see for example THL 2021).

It has been noticed that inherited learning difficulties (dyslexia that runs in a family) are connected to family literacy. Especially low-educated mothers and fathers spent less time reading together with their children. Reading together predicted a better reading comprehension among children, whether their parents had learning difficulties or not, and higher educated parents did more reading together with their children. The mother’s level of education affected the development of reading comprehension through a greater amount of reading together. (Khanolainen et al. 2020.) It should be pointed out, however, that low socio-economic background does not automatically signify parents that read very little and weak family reading culture. What is more significant is the adult’s personal relation to literature and willingness to share literary experiences with children. (Robertson & Reese 2017.)