Education Commons^™

Family Support Of Third-Grade Reading Skills, Motivation, And Habits, Lauren Capotosto, James S. Kim, Mary A. Burkhauser, Soojin Oh Park, Bethany Mulimbi, Maleka Donaldson, Helen Chen Kingston

Education and Child Study: Faculty Publications

This qualitative study investigated the ways in which 84 parents from predominantly low-income communities described supporting their third graders’ reading skills, motivation, and habits. Thematic analysis of open-ended parent interviews indicated that parents actively and deliberately scaffolded their children’s progress toward developing independent reading skills. Parents explicitly communicated the value of reading in everyday conversations; actively listened to their children read, even if they did not understand the language in which the text was written; asked reading comprehension questions; created a home environment conducive to sustained reading; promoted reader autonomy through encouragement of strategy use; and incorporated reading practices into …