Is There a Connection between Reading to Children and the Child’s Involvement in Reading Activities? / Postoji li veza između čitanja djeci i uključenosti djeteta u aktivnosti čitanja?

The ability to read is vital. Reading paves the way to success in school, which can build self-confidence and motivate your child to set high expectations from life. Children are “learners” by nature and they learn from the prenatal phase. The child learns by observing the environment and imitating the role models. Likewise, children learn to read encouraged by examples from the environment. Reading aloud to children is the best way to get them interested in reading. By reading, they will grow to love stories and books. Eventually they will want to read on their own. To research parental involvement in reading activities with children, we used Questionnaire of the Hanen Center for Evaluating Parental Involvement in the Development of Reading Skills. We wanted to investigate if there is a statistically significant difference in parents’ engagement in reading to children and with children with regard to their parents’ academic education, number of parents who live with a child, and financial income in the household. We also wanted to find out if there is a statistically significant association between parental involvement in the child’s reading activities and their child’s involvement in reading activities. There were 716 respondents. Findings indicated that demographic data, such as parents’ academic education, number of parents who live with a child, and financial income in the household have a statistically significant impact on parental involvement in reading activities with their children, but also on their child’s involvement in reading activities. The results show statistically significant association between parental involvement in the child’s reading activities and their child’s involvement in reading activities, as expected. This paper points out the importance of reading to children, no matter their age, since the use of those kind of activities has been proven to be effective in promoting literacy skills, in previous researches as well as in this one. Key words: parental involvement; promoting reading skills; reading; reading activities; reading skills. - Sažetak Sposobnost citanja iznimno je važna vjestina. Citanje utire put uspjehu u skoli, koji može izgraditi samopouzdanje i motivirati dijete da postavi visoka ocekivanja za život. Djeca uce citati potaknuta primjerima iz okoline. Citanje naglas najbolji je nacin da djecu zainteresirate za citanje. Citajuci djeci, poticete ih da samostalno pocnu citati te da na kraju zavole aktivnost citanja. Kako bi se istražila roditeljska ukljucenost u aktivnosti citanja djeci, koristen je Upitnik Hanen centra za procjenu ukljucenosti roditelja u aktivnosti koje poticu razvoj vjestina citanja. U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 716 ispitanika. Rezultati ukazuju da demografski podatci, kao sto su akademsko obrazovanje roditelja, broj roditelja koji žive s djetetom i financijski prihod u kucanstvu imaju statisticki znacajan utjecaj na ukljucenost roditelja u aktivnosti citanja vlastitoj djeci, ali i na ukljucenost njihova djeteta u aktivnosti citanja. Rezultati pokazuju statisticki znacajnu povezanost između ukljucenosti roditelja u aktivnosti citanja djetetu i ukljucenosti djeteta u aktivnosti citanja, kao sto je bilo ocekivano. Ovim radom naglasava se važnost citanja djeci, bez obzira na njihovu dob jer je dokazano da je citanje, kao aktivnost, ucinkovito u promicanju pismenosti. Kljucne rijeci: citalacke aktivnosti; citanje; poticanje citalackih vjestina; ukljucenost roditelja; vjestina citanja.