The relationship between Grade 5 learners’ reading literacy achievement and parental reading attitudes and behaviours

Abstract

This study aims to establish the relationship between reading literacy in the primary school and parental attitudes and behaviour to reading. Reading literacy is another dimension of literacy (Dubin & Kuhlman, 1992), notably the ability to understand and make use of written language (Mullis, Martin, Kennedy, Trong & Sainsbury, 2009). Despite various educational improvement initiatives undertaken by the South African Education system (ANAs, SACMEQ, TIMMS, PIRLS) as a means of creating systems to improve standards of education (Education Policy Act 2015 of 1998), learner achievement in the primary school remains low. This study makes use of selected variables from the PIRLS 2011 parent questionnaire to measure the extent of the relationship between learner reading achievement in Grade 5 and home level factors such as learning environment, parental behaviours in reading and parental attitudes towards reading. It adopts a secondary analysis design and makes use of quantitative approaches (Creswell, 2003). The Developed model of Home Learning Environment, Parental Behaviours and Parental Attitudes to Reading and Reading Literacy Achievement was adapted from the model of attitudes, behaviours and reading as developed by Abu-Rabia and Yaari (2012). This study was able to establish that the home learning environment and parental behaviours to reading had negative association with reading literacy, meaning that in their absence reading literacy would decrease. It established that parental attitudes to reading had positive association with reading literacy, meaning that in the presence of positive parental attitudes, reading literacy would increase. This highlights the importance of parental involvement in learner reading development.