Особенности читательских интересов детей младшего школьного возраста, воспитывающихся в семьях с различным социокультурным статусом

Abstract

At present multiple publications and surveys on children’s reading challenges offer controversial findings. While some observe a reduced interest in reading among children and adolescents, others state that these readers are drawn to new books on subjects which they deem relevant, and which many parents and educators know little about. In their wish that children should read, parents and educators are often guided by their own current and childhood preferences. This notion essentially has shaped the research objective to study the reading preference specifics in young learners from different sociocultural family backgrounds. The paper uses reading preference as a psychological and pedagogical category, as it determines the attitude to reading, a preference for certain kinds of books, a reading range, and an impulse to discuss the books one is reading or has read. Although a number of factors may impact a child’s reading preferences and their development, this research focuses primarily on families. The term sociocultural family background is used as a differentiator to analyze the family upbringing environment as well as its educational and schooling capacity. The survey involved 204 respondents (102 children and 102 parents) and its outcomes established the reading preferences of young readers from different sociocultural family backgrounds. The paper identifies the differences in attitudes toward reading, reader preference profiles (from mandatory school reading to books by contemporary children’s writers), and towards the ability to have and to support one’s reading preferences. The identified profiles are aligned with the criteria of the reader’s preference survey. The article also contains a reference list of books popular among today’s primary school children.