A survey carried out by booksellers Easons through Amarach Research reveals that nearly 20 percent of parents never read to their children.
The Irish Independent reports on the survey which comes as part of Easons’, an Irish national bookseller, campaign aimed to encourage people to get into reading. The data collected showed that around one third of the parents surveyed point to time pressures as a leading factor in not reading to their children.
The approximate 20 percent of parents who don’t read to their children comes in sharp contrast to the 80 percent who were encouraged to read when they themselves were children. Similarly, 69 percent of those surveyed revealed that they were read to as children.
More than half of those surveyed reported that they feel guilty for not reading or not reading enough to their children.
Easons noted along with their data that “Among the many results that make up the report, it was clear that the regular reading to young children benefited their development.”
Further, Dr. John Sharry, a child psychologist, said that a daily reading time shared with children is "the single most important connection" between parents and child.
To learn more about Eason’s new ‘get into reading’ initiative, check out their blog here.
8 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.ciaradexy | Aug 01, 2012, 12:56 PM EDT
Portia, you dont live in Cork so how can you comment?
irishcoffeekid | Jul 31, 2012, 11:23 PM EDT
well im delighted to say my sister isnt one of them. She reads story books to her 4 year old daughter every single day of the week to the point that little miss will now choose storytime and jigsaws over tv. She even loves making up stories in the car. Last time i was home she had her book in her hand and they had a CD of the story on in the car and I was told my niece was going to read to me - she turned the pages on time and said the story right along with the cd - she knew them off by heart - she's 4 years old and loves telling stories - i love that my sister has repeated the way our parents brought us up where books were a delight as gifts, not electronics (thats not to say they dont have their place - i downloaded read to me story books onto my table so those go down well too)!! meegenuis is a great modern day story book for new technology and comes in really handy in restaurants so its a case of the best of both worlds yet reading to kids is what makes it.
aloistmartin | Jul 30, 2012, 07:17 PM EDT
The Business Pages, the way grandma would read us The Bible at Bedtime as Children @?
ellenred | Jul 30, 2012, 02:20 PM EDT
Duh that statistic means that 80 PERCENT of parents DO read to their children
fargobarbi | Jul 30, 2012, 11:42 AM EDT
Sad state of affairs. As a teacher & a parent, the importance of reading to children/grandchildren/neighbor children, can not be stressed enough. The time spent together is also great for nurturing & bonding. Some of my best childhood memories are sitting on my dad's & mummy's lap being read a story.
PhlutiePhan | Jul 30, 2012, 11:03 AM EDT
My Irish grandmother read to me. How about the headline reading "4 in 5 parents read to their children"? I would say that that would be impressive. Switch the headline to a positive and it preaches a different story.
lokionline | Jul 30, 2012, 10:34 AM EDT
Research in into how we learn to read has consistently shown that the single most reliable predictor of success in reading is for a parental or sibling to read with very young children... from birth! I read to my son for a month before he was born and all through his early years.
Unborn children can hear in the womb.
My son who now an adult and unlike me, who "was taught to read at school" but really learned from reading the Dandy and the Beano, he doesn't remember a time when he could not read.
Portia777 | Jul 30, 2012, 09:39 AM EDT
Trying not to laugh here, because HSE social workers complain if parents have too many books and read to their children? Inappropriate parenting ? might be only for single mums though, but definitely true in Cork