Jj is for Jottings 52. Reading to Children – Some Statistics.
Even the alpacas are worried about current trends.
Here are some disquieting (but not unexpected) statistics and comments quoted by the guest, who is very experienced in education, at the launch of “Aa is for Alpacas”:
Research by Angela Emher in 2013 of 1263 parents discovered that only one in four of them or 25% read to their children daily. They claimed that making dinner and doing housework, work commitments and exhaustion all interfered with the nightly routine of reading and sharing books with their children. From this same survey though 20% of parents though were worried that their own children read less than they did at a similar age. Is the bed time story being sacrificed because of busy lifestyle and at what cost to our future?
And the development of the spoken word and the ability to develop effective listening, so implicitly linked with the process of reading and the experiences that come with reading is also of importance, but of grave concern with the implications of the previous set of data. In a submission to the Australian Government Senate Inquiry regarding the prevalence of different type of speech, language and communication disorders and speech pathology services in Australia 2014 Charles Sturt University Professor Sharynne McLeod from a study of 14500 Australian school students presents data which indicates that 13.04% of students present with a communication disorder.
From a follow up study the assertion is that a communication disorder was the most important predictive factor that students would require a high level of support at school.
Enough said.