Reading With Your Kids Helps Literacy

Children with reading problems improve significantly if teachers help and encourage their parents to read with them at home.

This was the finding of Bernard Levey from MENCAP Pengern College in North Wales who published his findings today, Wednesday 9 January, at the British Psychological Society's Division of Child and Educational Psychology Annual Conference in Bournemouth.

The project was carried out in six Hull primary schools involving 143 children aged between seven and ten years old who were already receiving support for literacy difficulties. A support assistant visited each child's home weekly to give advice, provide materials and give support to the parents in their work with their children.

The children, who had previously been making slower than average progress, were now making at least one months progress per month. However, when the support was not available the children's progress fell to less than 50%.

Mr Levey commented; "Parents can, with support make a difference to their children's progress in literacy even when the child has special needs. These results are impressive but equally remarkable was the change in the confidence level of parents, the raised level of interest in literacy and the greater recognition by schools that parents with the right level of support can make a difference. At the end of the project parents reported feeling more confident about helping their children read and a greater interest, not only in the children, but also amongst the parents in reading"

Website: British Psychological Society, http://www.bps.org.uk/