Promoting reading 1
early language stimulation and points out that by
providing information to parents, it is possible to influence the degree of their interaction with their child, and the quality of the stimulation that the child receives in the home. Parents armed with knowledge about the importance of stimulation for their child’s development stimulate the language development of their children more than other parents, and these children are then more successful in learning to read and write than children that have been given less stimulation. The thesis Tidig språkstimulering av barn (Early language stimulation in children) is one of several studies that support the type of reading promotion activities described in the following. Family literacy programmes Parents who regularly support their child’s learning in general and reading development in particular play a crucial role in the child’s reading motivation and reading ability. Parental engagement in the home is particularly important for the child’s reading development during early childhood, and has significant implications for the child’s linguistic and cognitive abilities as well as reading interest and reading motivation. A growing body of research is demonstrating the positive effects of family literacy interventions or family literacy programmes, that is, reading promotion initiatives addressed to whole families, often in regions of social vulnerability. The term “family literacy” is attributed to researcher Denny Taylor, who used it to describe middle-class families’ daily reading and writing activities in an ethnographic study. In the now classic study Family literacy (1983), Taylor documented the early attempts of small children to read and write for several purposes and in several contexts –including writing notes, reading product wordmarks, notices, traffic signs, etc. Taylor concluded that the parents of these children were not consciously aiming to teach the child to read and write, but instead were contributing to the child’s reading and writing development by encouraging them to take part in various activities that entailed reading and writing. Family literacy can thus refer to literacy activities that families engage in on a daily basis. A family literacy project refers to a type of project that, based on a recognition of the family’s important role in the reading and writing development of individual family members, addresses whole families to provide support and encouragement in this development. For a more detailed discussion of the concept of family literacy, see for example Brooks et al. (2008). There are several types of family literacy initiatives; a number of variants can be found for example in a report that brings together and describes a number of projects in Canada (Thomas 1998). It is common in family literacy programmes to encourage parents to read aloud to their children, and/or to provide families with free book packs. Reading promotion programmes of the family literacy type are found in many places around the world. In a comprehensive meta-analysis, Carpentieri et al. (2011) examined the efficacy of a series of reading promotion initiatives in Europe targeting families with children, with an emphasis on families in socially vulnerable groups. This survey included studies of successful and innovative examples of programmes implemented in Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Turkey and the United Kingdom. The study is based on a review of six meta-analyses of reading promotion programmes targeting families with children, which in turn constitute analyses of a still 30