Hearing Beginning Readers Read: problems of relating practice to theory in interpretation and evaluation

Abstract

AbstractResearch reports of the involvement of parents in hearing children read show equivocal results in terms of improvement in reading scores or progress through school books. Analysing the practices of both parents and teachers as reported in the literature this paper demonstrates that the phenomenon is not a simple, fixed treatment meriting assessment on limited dependent variables. It shows that in current evaluations there is insufficient analysis of the social and intentional nature of the practice, and of associated educational and theoretical rationales, to do justice to possible effects and to help interpret various findings.