Parents as Social Influences Encouraging Book Reading: Research Directions for Librarians’ Literacy Advocacy

Merga, M. K., & Roni, S. M. (2018). Parents as Social Influences Encouraging Book Reading: Research Directions forLibrarians’Literacy Advocacy. Journal of Library Administration, 58(1), 674-697. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2018.1514841

School libraries can support parents by providing the most current research insights to inform their approach to supporting reading at home. This journal illuminates the relationships between reading frequency,  gender, and parental encouragement. It also mentions the important role of the library's valuable educative partnerships with families in fostering literacy. As such, this paper seeks to investigate the role of parents as influential social agents in supporting young people’s reading beyond the early years, with a particular interest in the types of encouragement provided and the relationship between children’s gender and encouragement.  It suggests that while encouragement is being focused on the children who need it, infrequent readers, the gender disparity in favor of greater encouragement for girls, who read more frequently in general, is a serious issue worth further exploration and an important point for educative intervention by librarians and other literacy advocates. Librarians can use this research to support parent–child reading initiatives that extend beyond the early years of parents as Social Influences Encouraging Book Reading693of reading skill acquisition and support parents to highly encourage their children.