The Importance of Home Literacy Environments in Terms of Children’s Reading Attitudes: A Study of Chinese Grade 5 Students

Abstract

A great deal has been written about family literacy environments and their effects in the field of Western education, yet there remains a lack of relevant research in China. In addition, the sparse literature that does exist focuses exclusively on reading attitudes and home environments in upper primary grades. The purpose of this study was thus to determine the status of family literacy environments in China and to examine the relationship between students' reading attitudes and these environments. The object of study for this article is the largest and most popular public primary school in a city in northern Jiangsu province, on China's east coast. To achieve this, 185 fifth grade students and their guardians participated in this study, and PIRLS 2011 parent and student questionnaires were used online to collect participants’ data; the resulting information was then systematically analyzed in SPSS. The results showed that, in China, parents' reading attitudes tended to be positive and their expectations of their children were high. Overall, both parents are important in the influence of the family environment, though there was no significant difference between girls’ and boys’ reading attitudes. In the main, there is a significant positive correlation between parents' attitude towards reading and students' attitude towards reading at school: the better the parents' attitude towards reading, the better the children's attitude towards reading. These findings imply that the effects of family environment on reading attitudes in the Chinese context differ little from those identified in the Western world, and that there are many similarities.