The Effect of Parental Involvement on Reading Achievement

Erica Crossley, Master’s Student, Education

 

In today’s schools, teachers go to great lengths to find ways to help improve their students’ reading ability. One avenue of success is found, not within schools but outside of them, in students’ homes. Research shows that parental involvement is an important factor in a student’s success in reading (Becher, 1985). The greater amount of parental involvement at home, the greater amount of success in a child’s reading ability. Students in this study will spend time reading to someone at home, and data will be analyzed to determine whether or not the reading time had an effect on the students’ reading levels. The sample will include sixty students in the first grade at an elementary school that has recently implemented an at-home reading program. A reading assessment will be used to group students according to their reading level. Students will participate in various reading activities each school day and then go home and read to someone for twenty minutes each night. Records will be kept of how many nights each week they read to another person. After eight weeks, the students will be reassessed. The amount of parental involvement will be correlated with the reading assessment. It is hypothesized that students who read to someone at night will show a higher rate of reading improvement than those who do not. The results of this study should show that parental involvement has a positive effect on the reading level of a student.