Parent-child Reading： Growing with Scholarship —— Investigation and Reflection on the Present Situation of Parent-child Reading in China
Authors: Guangming Daily Joint Research Group
editorial comment/note
Parent-child reading, with books as the medium and reading as the link, allows children and parents to share various forms of reading process, and is also one of the most effective ways to make children fall in love with reading. "Family is the first school in life, and parents are the first teachers of children, so we should teach them well ‘ The first lesson of life ’ Help to buckle the first button in life. " In 2018, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader delivered an important speech at the National Education Conference, which profoundly explained the significance of family education. In 2021, the State Council promulgated the China Children’s Development Program (2021— 2030), put forward the requirements of further strengthening parent-child reading guidance, cultivating children’s good reading habits, and recommending excellent children’s bibliographies by age group. What are the new trends of parent-child reading in China at present? What shortcomings are there? Guangming Daily reporter and the research group of the National Art Foundation of China Communication University, "Taking beauty as the medium: a tour of China’s original picture books", investigated the current situation of parent-child reading in China, and on this basis, put forward some countermeasures and suggestions to form a benign co-reading ecological circle.
In a park in yuqing county, Zunyi City, Guizhou Province, parents are reading with their children. Xinhua news agency
In front of the desk when the lights are on, children and adults snuggle up to each other and feel the joy of role reading; In the holiday library, children’s literature and picture book authors gather here to explain the mystery of children’s books for readers’ families; In the picture library in the corner community, adults and children sit around and listen carefully to the explanation of the guide … … Books open a window for children’s world, and "parent-child reading" has become an important bridge between them and the world.
Parent-child reading has gradually become a new trend in reading practice for all.
Reading status is improving day by day, and value cognition is recognized."Since my child was born, I began to buy all kinds of picture books, such as cloth books, hole books, touch books and sticker books … … Some books have been turned over hundreds of times. " Ms. Ren from Hefei, Anhui Province often shares her experience in choosing books for her children on social platforms. She told the research team that although the children just entered the first grade, the school has reading classes every week, and parents and children are also required to complete some parent-child reading tasks at home. Ms. Ren recalled that when she was a child, she rarely heard the expression of "parent-child reading", but now it has become a very popular family activity. Among the 1,610 valid questionnaires collected in this survey, over 90% of the parents and children interviewed had the experience of parent-child reading together. In addition, the survey also found that even if there is no parent-child reading related task assigned by the school, 78% of the parents interviewed will actively carry out parent-child reading activities.
In recent years, parent-child reading has not only become a new trend in the reading practice of the whole people, but also promoted the change of family education concept. "Reading together not only makes my relationship with my children closer, but also enables us to get rich knowledge and experience from books." Ms. An, who lives in Dongcheng District, Beijing, believes that parent-child reading is not only a family activity, but also a beneficial educational method. According to the survey data, both parents and children think that parent-child reading is not only helpful to the improvement of parent-child relationship and family value (87.2%), but also promotes the accumulation of children’s humanistic literacy (87.8%), scientific literacy (86.2%) and spiritual literacy (83.8%), and the cultivation of their socialization ability (84.8%) can also help children’s long-term development. Parent-child reading has become an educational practice that attracts much attention at present.
The reading environment is diverse, and the resistance to habit cultivation still exists.Share wonderful books, promote classic works and hold reading activities … … Ms. Zhao, who runs a picture book library near Orson Park in Beijing, said: "I am also a mother. Like the demands of many members, the original intention of organizing the picture book library is to find professional reading guidance and more interesting reading experience for children." It is understood that some first-and second-tier cities in China already have a number of parent-child reading ecosystems consisting of public libraries, community parent-child reading spaces, commercial picture books and children’s bookstores. Among the families interviewed, in addition to traditional scenes such as their bedrooms and study rooms (89.3%), parent-child reading is also distributed in libraries and bookstores (42.1%), picture books and children’s book salons (14.9%), schools and educational institutions (13.8%) and outdoor scenes such as camping (11.5%). Nearly half of the families surveyed have carried out innovative activities of parent-child reading combined with manual DIY, audio-visual images, fun games and drama performances.
In terms of reading habits, 36.7% of the families surveyed carry out parent-child reading every day, of which 41.8% and 47.3% are under 15 minutes and 15-30 minutes respectively. The data has been greatly improved compared with previous years, and parent-child reading has gradually become an important part of family life. However, nearly half of the families surveyed said that they didn’t have a fixed reading time and frequency, and they didn’t have the habit of setting the reading schedule in advance. The activities were started and ended at will, mainly because they didn’t have enough time (72.4%).
Reading strategies are concerned, and the choice of types is emphasized."The largest number of readers", "the highest evaluation" and "Children must read books" … … Nowadays, there are not a few recommended books circulating on the Internet, but "how to choose the type of reading materials scientifically" is still a puzzle for many parents. At the same time, "how to stimulate parents’ interest in reading" and "how to improve the reading effect" are also the focus of parents’ attention.
The survey data shows that, in the aspect of reading materials selection, at present, the type selection of parent-child reading materials in China is generally biased towards cognitive popular science and habit formation, and less attention is paid to aesthetic cultivation, visual thinking and easy decompression reading materials. 58.9% of parents said that they would give priority to their children’s psychological needs and cognitive characteristics. In addition, listening to professional recommendations, referring to popular online rankings and selecting best-sellers in physical bookstores are also common ways for them to choose reading materials. Judging from the initial stage of parent-child reading, nearly 60% of families started parent-child reading before their children entered kindergarten. On the method of co-reading, although most parents will guide their children to expand their thinking on the basis of reading aloud (56.7%), and even let their children be the leader of parent-child reading (22.6%), nearly half of the parents still think that they lack scientific guiding strategies and reading methods in the process of parent-child reading, and one fifth of the parents interviewed only read aloud according to the contents of books. 91% of the parents surveyed believe that there is room for improvement in their parent-child reading skills.
The restrictive factors of co-reading and sharing need to be solved urgently
At present, China has formed a preliminary understanding of the educational value of parent-child reading, but there are still great differences in the actual implementation effect of parent-child reading among different families. The development of parent-child reading in China is obviously unbalanced.
There are differences in cognition, and the development of parent-child reading is uneven.On the one hand, the objective family situation affects the importance attached to parent-child reading. The survey shows that the family’s emphasis on parent-child reading is positively related to parents’ income and education level: families with highly educated parents tend to start parent-child reading in their children’s preschool stage, and they have more parent-child books. They are also willing to spend more time on parent-child reading activities, pay attention to reading expansion and actively seek outside help. In contrast, ordinary families are limited by their parents’ own objective conditions, which leads to their lack of attention to the value of parent-child reading, their late start, their weak initiative in carrying out joint reading activities, and their poor understanding of parent-child reading methods.
On the other hand, the society also lacks the resource input and value guidance for parent-child reading. According to the survey, 92.7% of parents want to choose books that can inherit the Chinese spirit and enhance their cultural self-confidence as parent-child books, but more than half of the families in China have original parent-child books, accounting for only 38.3% of all the families interviewed. The research team believes that the degree of social attention to parent-child reading determines the degree of investment in market resources. Only by clarifying the value of parent-child reading and attaching importance to parent-child reading can we further optimize its related resources, system, market and ecology.
Experience is lacking, and the level of joint reading and co-construction needs to be improved.It is found that the diversified scene practice of parent-child reading activities in public space is still to be developed. On the one hand, the construction of child-friendly places needs professional design and financial support from relevant social institutions. At present, public space places that can provide rich parent-child reading experience are mainly concentrated in first-and second-tier cities, and many third-and fourth-tier cities are still lacking; On the other hand, the cultivation of parents’ sense of security, trust and user stickiness in public parent-child reading places is also a major test for the operation and management of parent-child reading scenes in public spaces at this stage.
In addition, families also lack the spirit of exploration when choosing parent-child reading scenes. Most parents’ parent-child reading activities are still confined to home, and there is little linkage with outdoor natural scenes, online and offline interconnected scenes and other diverse scenes. The survey data shows that the enthusiasm of parent-child reading in outdoor scenes such as camping is much higher than that in traditional family environment, but only 11.5% of families actually read parent-child reading in outdoor scenes.
"In order to facilitate children’s electronic reading, I specially bought a tablet computer. However, there are fewer and fewer free content on the platform, the quality of paid content is uneven, and more and more advertisements and task games make children constantly addicted and lose the essence and initial heart of reading. " Mr. Liang, who lives in Chaoyang District, Beijing, admitted to the research team that he was worried about e-reading. The survey shows that although more and more parents are willing to pay for e-books in parent-child reading, only 19.2% of the families surveyed have a positive attitude towards using electronic products to read. The online reading platform has uneven reading quality, lack of supervision, incomplete service system and no guarantee after sale, so parents are worried about e-reading.
Links are missing, and the division of roles is out of balance."We don’t have many institutions that professionally guide children’s reading. At first, we mainly bought picture books with some parenting bloggers, but we will also encounter books that don’t match the children’s age or are of unsatisfactory quality." Ms. Ai, who lives in Hulunbeier City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, told the research team that these experiences made her have a strong demand for reading guidance in schools, libraries and other professional institutions. It is found that the lack of information links among families, schools and society in some areas makes parents face many obstacles in carrying out parent-child reading. In the survey of providing support for parent-child reading, 32.6% parents most expect to get school support and expect to get parent-child reading guidance from school; In addition, 27.9% parents expect the support of cultural institutions, and expect social organizations to hold more parent-child reading activities and open theme exhibitions for parents and children to read. 60% of parents expect guidance from schools and society on how to scientifically carry out parent-child reading.
In addition, the imbalance in the division of labor between parents and children in the family will lead to its failure to achieve the best results. At present, 67.6% of families play the role of bandu by their mothers, while only 18% of families whose fathers are from bandu. Related research shows that the father’s participation is of great significance to the development of children’s early literacy and personality habits.
Constructing an Ecosphere for Family, School and Society to "Enjoy" Reading and Educate People
At present, the key to the breakthrough development of parent-child reading in China lies in whether the family, school and society can reach a long-term communication. This survey shows that although different families still have differences in the concept, division of labor, experience and effect of parent-child reading, most families have regarded parent-child reading as an important part of family education and actively sought support from the school and society.
Many parties attach importance to the practice of parent-child reading, and form the concept of "parent-child+"extensive reading, interest reading, free reading and characteristic reading.Families should take the initiative to understand the value core of extensive reading. According to the actual family conditions, the distribution of leisure time and energy, children’s own interests and other factors, parents’ reading behavior is taken as an example to cultivate children’s good reading habits invisibly, and through various ways such as reading, reading together, listening and communicating, children are guided to establish open reading thinking and convey correct values.
Schools should actively guide the form innovation of extensive reading. Combine parent-child reading with in-class teaching and extracurricular activities, improve the campus reading service system, play an exemplary role, and guide the school and family education students to advance together.
The society should support and promote the system construction of extensive reading. Guided by carrying forward the national spirit and cultivating socialist core values, we will spread high-quality educational resources through media assistance and cultural public welfare organizations, so that high-quality featured books can enter the eyes of parents and achieve a win-win situation in boosting domestic high-quality original books and enriching the parent-child reading practice.
Expand and build an online and offline diversified reading system to create a rich parent-child reading scene.Families should take the initiative to try the parent-child reading experience in new scenes. Give play to parents’ subjective initiative, accept and make good use of new public parent-child reading spaces such as picture books, community shared reading, and city bookstores; At the same time, we can pay attention to the integration of parent-child reading in family activities such as camping, outing, returning home, etc., and choose thematic reading materials to echo the real scene in combination with festivals and specific historical events, so as to create a diversified reading environment for children, cultivate their initiative in reading, and stimulate curiosity and creativity; In addition, we should correctly understand the digital internet platform and reading materials in the development of parent-child reading, and understand the influence of virtual and real internet on children’s reading patterns and forms.
Schools should actively build parent-child reading education scenes linking "in-class and out-of-class" and expanding "in-school and out-of-school". We can actively expand the practice scene of parent-child reading by setting up library open days, holding reading month activities and building reading societies. In addition, we should cooperate with digital libraries and Internet media to provide healthy and comprehensive digital reading resources, and at the same time carry out the construction of co-reading communication mechanism in line with children’s cognitive development level.
The society should support and promote the construction of multi-scene reading mode and improve the security system. Government departments and cultural institutions should investigate the hidden needs of all localities to carry out open parent-child reading activities, and increase parent-child reading friendly places in public scientific and educational spaces such as libraries, exhibition halls, art galleries, science and technology museums and museums; Relevant enterprises and organizations should also support the establishment of community children’s reading sharing places, so that shared books and shared spaces can become a powerful guarantee for developing new shared parent-child reading and alleviating the pressure of family education; In addition, we should attach importance to the rising Internet parent-child reading scene, strictly control the content quality of digital reading materials, establish an evaluation mechanism, help dispel parents’ concerns about e-reading through trial reading, gift sharing and other means, and exchange high-quality services and guarantees for parents’ trust.
Use scientific and technological means to break through the constraints of realistic conditions, promote the habit cultivation, strategy optimization and form innovation of parent-child reading, and activate reading innovation.At present, pop-up book, e-books, audio books and other new concept parent-child reading materials are emerging. Families should be encouraged to expand the single reading of traditional reading materials to the composite reading of various media publications, flexibly use new technologies and new materials to expand parent-child reading methods, optimize the multi-sensory reading experience, and explore multi-dimensional interactive forms.
Schools should actively introduce cutting-edge scientific and technological means and strengthen the guidance of scientific methods for parent-child reading. Through WeChat official account, video number and other schools’ media platforms, the popular forms such as live broadcast and short video are used to promote and exchange the results of parent-child reading and encourage the development of parent-child reading activities; At the same time, with the help of the school’s professional education resources and evaluation system, we should help families to screen new forms of reading products such as audio and video, VR and AR that are suitable in the market and introduce them into the campus, provide opportunities for family parent-child reading experience, promote cutting-edge scientific and technological means to enter the family’s field of vision, and stimulate new family reading needs; In addition, we should strengthen the parent-child reading guidance after the integration of new technologies to help families master scientific methods.
The society should support the interconnection between the science and technology industry and the education industry, and promote the nationwide reading. On the one hand, it helps to upgrade public spaces, divide public reading spaces such as traditional community libraries and children’s book salons into multi-functional zones, introduce advanced scientific and technological media and gamification strategies of science education, and create parent-child reading spaces jointly built and shared by community groups; On the other hand, we should provide policy support, encourage leading enterprises in science and technology to participate in the design of parent-child reading education products, let the frontier means of science and technology sink to the front line of education, become an auxiliary tool for parent-child activities, and comprehensively improve the reading quality from content to form.
Starting with concept innovation and system design, a long-term system of coordination and sharing, reading and educating people will be formed.Families should take the initiative to change outdated educational concepts, pay more attention to emotional bandu, and promote the role of father to participate in family education. Families should improve the division of labor between parents in parent-child reading activities, and expand the main body of parent-child reading activities to family members other than parents to create a reading atmosphere for all family members; The family should take the main responsibility and actively seek communication with the school and society; At the same time, we should balance the proportion of all kinds of parent-child activities and make parent-child reading an important part of children’s education.
Schools should help ease the problems encountered in family parent-child reading practice, optimize children’s reading guidance during school, and rationally plan and recommend extracurricular reading books; Establish an interconnection mechanism with parents to help parents learn parent-child reading skills and improve parent-child reading confidence; Maintain communication with social organizations and invite writers, artists, scientists and other creators of reading materials to enter the school for exchange.
(Members of the research group of China Communication University: Jia Xiuqing, Han Jiazheng, Jiang Yichen, Zhang Hui, Gong Yixuan, Bao Mingzhe, Wang Yazhen, Zhong Yuchao, etc.; Guangming Daily reporter: Bai Xuelei, Lan Yani, Ji Yaning)
Guangming Daily (November 30, 2023, 07 edition)