Children's Environment and Behavior: Reading and Telling Stories to Young Children

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Child development specialists have long noted that reading books to children or telling them stories triggers their imagination and sharpens their literacy skills. Poverty may jeopardize the quality of the home environment, particularly by reducing the quality or amount of time parents have for literacy activities with their children. This can limit a child's readiness for school, putting him or her at an educational disadvantage.

Under welfare reform, some low-income parents may find it more difficult to find time to read to young children because of the additional demands of job training and employment. However, for other parents, less worry about money and a more structured lifestyle may make daily reading more feasible. Monitoring these changes in family life will be important to shaping society's response to low-income children's cognitive needs.

Parents were asked how many days during the week they read or told stories to their children. Nationally, 17 percent of all children age 1 to 5 were read to or told stories fewer than three days per week. Children in low-income families (below 200 percent of the poverty level) were more than twice as likely as other children to fall into this risk category (24 percent versus 10 percent).

In the 13 states surveyed, 13 percent to 24 percent of children were read to or told stories fewer than three times a week. In three states, the percentages of children in this risk category exceeded the national average: California, Mississippi, and Texas. A lower-than-average percentage of children fell into this category in Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Wisconsin.

Among low-income children in the surveyed states, 16 percent to 33 percent were read to or told stories fewer than three times a week. In California, Mississippi, and Texas, the percentage of children in this category exceeded the national average of 24 percent. In contrast, smaller-than-average percentages of low-income children fell into this category in Minnesota, New York, and Washington.

Note: The Portable Document Format (PDF) of this report includes all tables and charts.

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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