Abstract:

In assessing child’s school readiness one takes into account his maturity to take up various tasks and duties connected with school responsibilities. School readiness is defined through the lens of child’s psycho-physical maturity which corresponds mainly to child’s emotional, social and mental functioning. The more mature the child is in these respects, the higher the chances of his school success. Another line of research points to the importance of reading of literary texts, either by parents to the child or the child himself. It has been concluded that most of the children whose parents read to them progress well as far as physical, psychical, social and language development is concerned. However, there has been no research up to date showing a link between the level of emotional and social school readiness and parents’ opinions concerning reading literary texts to children and the frequency of this activity.

The purpose of the present study is to determine whether there exists any correlation between the parents’ belief in the importance of reading various literary texts to their children at home and the level of the children’s emotional and social school development. Specifically, the research focuses on the question of the average result in the level of emotional and social school readiness of the children who are read to various literary texts for at least 30 minutes every day.

The analysis of the obtained data reveals that there exists a statistically significant positive high correlation between the level of emotional and social maturity of the child and his parents’ opinion regarding the importance of reading to children and the time of this activity. The longer parents read to their child, the more emotionally and socially mature the child is. The coefficient of determination of linear variability of both variables amounted to 70%. Moreover, on the basis of the conducted research one may conclude that if parents read various literary texts to their child for at least 30 minutes, the child’s level of school readiness would constitute on average 66% of emotional and social maturity. On the basis of regression analysis it may be stated that regardless of daily reading to the child his emotional and social maturity is at the level of 36%. Hence reading to a child for 30 minutes a day would raise his level of emotional and social maturity by 30%.

Parents, as the first teachers of their child, play a pivotal role in their child’s overall emotional and social school development. Ensuring that reading to children at home takes place, will not only prepare children for school education and raise their emotional and social school readiness, but will also affect their success even into adulthood.

Keywords:

School readiness, emotional development, social development, reading to children.