Mothers’ views on shared reading with their two-year olds using printed and electronic texts: Purpose,confidence and practice

Abstract

This paper investigates mothers’ views regarding the purpose of shared reading with their two-year-old children, confidence in using printed and electronic texts, and self-reported practice, framed around a focus on mothers’ motivation to engage in shared reading with their children. Research into adult–child shared reading experiences has traditionally focused on early reading behaviours and talk patterns captured in video data, reporting on the literacy or cognitive benefits of these experiences as viewed by researchers. Parent contributions have typically been sought to provide background information such as parent education, frequency of home reading and socio-economic factors. There is limited research that invites parents' voices. Findings from this study have been drawn from quantitative and qualitative data, collected from questionnaires and individual interviews with 12 reading-proficient mothers of two-year-old children in Victoria, Australia. Findings show that mothers acknowledged the educational affordances of shared reading, and the love of reading that the practice invites. Self-reported practices and confidence levels showed a strong preference for using printed picture storybooks as part of a bedtime routine, and that access to electronic texts does not necessarily equate to the same guided engagement with electronic texts as with printed texts.