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?
Authors: Matijević Katarina , Bernić Renata 
Published: January 2021

The ability to read is vital. Reading paves the way to success in school, which canbuild self-confidence and motivate your child to set high expectations from life.Children are “learners” by nature and they learn from the prenatal phase. Thechild learns by observing the environment and imitating the role models. Likewise,children learn to read encouraged by examples from the environment. Readingaloud 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 theirown. To research parental involvement in reading activities with children, we usedQuestionnaire of the Hanen Center for Evaluating Parental Involvement in theDevelopment of Reading Skills. We wanted to investigate if there is a statisticallysignificant difference in parents’ engagement in reading to children and withchildren with regard to their parents’ academic education, number of parents wholive with a child, and financial income in the household. We also wanted to find outif there is a statistically significant association between parental involvement in thechild’s reading activities and their child’s involvement in reading activities. Therewere 716 respondents. Findings indicated that demographic data, such as parents’academic education, number of parents who live with a child, and financial incomein the household have a statistically significant impact on parental involvement inreading activities with their children, but also on their child’s involvement in readingactivities. The results show statistically significant association between parentalinvolvement in the child’s reading activities and their child’s involvement in readingactivities, 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 beeffective 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.-SažetakSposobnost čitanja iznimno je važna vještina. Čitanje utire put uspjehu u školi, kojimože izgraditi samopouzdanje i motivirati dijete da postavi visoka očekivanja zaživot. Djeca uče čitati potaknuta primjerima iz okoline. Čitanje naglas najbolji jenačin da djecu zainteresirate za čitanje. Čitajući djeci, potičete ih da samostalnopočnu čitati te da na kraju zavole aktivnost čitanja. Kako bi se istražila roditeljskauključenost u aktivnosti čitanja djeci, korišten je Upitnik Hanen centra za procjenuuključenosti roditelja u aktivnosti koje potiču razvoj vještina čitanja. U istraživanjuje sudjelovalo 716 ispitanika. Rezultati ukazuju da demografski podatci, kao štosu akademsko obrazovanje roditelja, broj roditelja koji žive s djetetom i financijskiprihod u kućanstvu imaju statistički značajan utjecaj na uključenost roditelja uaktivnosti čitanja vlastitoj djeci, ali i na uključenost njihova djeteta u aktivnostičitanja. Rezultati pokazuju statistički značajnu povezanost između uključenostiroditelja u aktivnosti čitanja djetetu i uključenosti djeteta u aktivnosti čitanja,kao što je bilo očekivano. Ovim radom naglašava se važnost čitanja djeci, bezobzira na njihovu dob jer je dokazano da je čitanje, kao aktivnost, učinkovito upromicanju pismenosti.Ključne riječi: čitalačke aktivnosti; čitanje; poticanje čitalačkih vještina; uključenostroditelja; vještina čitanja.