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mmillington t1_j0umqi5 wrote

Reply to comment by Davidstarr86 in Has your reading habit helped your career? by theelegantprof

I wonder how much of this compares to childhood literacy and having books in the house. Simply buying. Looks to have in your house doesn't, on it's own, foster literacy. The connection between. Ook ownership and literacy is that people who buy books tend to be people who read books. Their children see their parents reading books and tend to mimic what their parents do.

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anfotero t1_j0uvjrx wrote

>Their children see their parents reading books and tend to mimic what their parents do.

A million times this. If a child doesn't see their parents reading they probably won't be that much insipired to do it, they won't attach particular emotional value to it and they might have a hard time starting once they're adults. This matters A LOT.

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mmillington t1_j0uwc84 wrote

That's exactly how my kids are. At 3-years-old, my daughter will grab a book and hop up beside me when she sees me reading.

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DeborahJeanne1 t1_j0viyny wrote

Here’s how it was for me….I’m the oldest of 4. My parents did not have a bookcase full of books (I have 4). My father spent his evenings watching TV, although he did read the newspaper from one end to the other. My mother was a typical 1950s homemaker - always cleaning, cooking, canning, baking, etc - I never saw her read BUT she read to me and my brother (2yrs younger) every night.

I used the library as a very young person, and remember signing out 5-6 books at a time. I’ve loved reading my whole life. My brother is not a reader even though we were identically exposed. Interestingly, the first (me) and third are avid readers - the second and fourth are not. And the second and fourth did not do well in school, but first and third did. My brother- the one 10 years younger- can quote the Bible and cite chapters and verses. He didn’t go to college but he’s extremely knowledgeable about so many different things.

My sister (#4) is clueless about everything. I’ve always attributed my love for reading to my mother reading to us nightly, but that doesn’t explain why 2 of 4 children raised identically in the same house with the same parents love to read and the other 2 don’t!

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anfotero t1_j0vpfcd wrote

Because the process is not deterministic! It's the same for me and my sister: I'm an avid reader since I can remember, she rarely pick ups a book or a comic. Still we both were good at school and she graduated university with full marks, I got a PhD and taught for a while.

Many factors contribute to steer and nudge the developing minds of children in discovering what they like, but your mileage may vary because we're all different and our context can vary even in the same family. The same stimulus may elicit different responses. It's a reasonably well studied field and the correlation between parental reading habits+attitude and children's love for reading is there. I think I have a few papers on this saved somewhere, will edit if I find them.

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DeborahJeanne1 t1_j0wuf3j wrote

And I’m sure there’s a little bit of genetics at work somewhere. It’s just so interesting to see four kids raised in the same fashion, all being read to every night - and I really looked forward to it - and to grow so differently. Reading is such a big part of my life. I daydream about a screen tent in my backyard with a hammock, a little table, and a camp light - so I can read outside at night without getting eaten by bugs! To go out there early in the morning with a big carafe of fresh coffee, a good book, a gorgeous sunny but slightly cool day, and nowhere to go and not a thing to do but read all day. 📖📚🍹☀️

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nottheletter_M t1_j0uqg6s wrote

I don’t know the name of the research’s off the top of my head, but I once read a study where the findings showed that children who grew up with books in their home had higher incomes in adulthood compared to those who didn’t even when controlling for potential confounding variables such as SES, gender, IQ, race, ethnicity, etc.

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mmillington t1_j0usx4r wrote

Yeah, the takeaway isn't that you should simply have books in the house. The key is that people who have books in their house are people who tend to be preselected for certain "outcomes."

New parents who aren't readers see studies like you mention and think they should go buy books and expect those outcomes. But it's really that people who read regularly have numerous common traits: early childhood literacy, higher education, simply seeing their parents reading makes them more likely to read.

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nottheletter_M t1_j0uu61z wrote

Of course, I think the idea is that most people who have books in their house also read those books, which I know is not always the case. The most important factor that research has found for reading leading to positive developmental improvements for children is actually when kids read books they enjoy by their own choice and are not forced to read. I feel encouraging that is where the real struggle lies.

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mmillington t1_j0v2dwu wrote

Yeah, that's the key. Adult readers are also likely library users, and taking kids to the library to pick out their own books makes a world of difference.

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