Lecture Study 2019: Why Parents Should Read More

Reading aloud, literally means looking at picture books, telling stories, spending time with the child. According to experts, however, the term should be broader - because even read street signs or WhatsApp messages of the grandmother could stimulate the language.

This is an advice from authors of a recent reading study to be presented this Tuesday. The study interviewed 700 parents of children aged two to eight years. Since 2007, the survey has been conducted annually on behalf of Stiftung Lesen, Deutsche Bahn Foundation and the weekly Die Zeit.

The result 2019:

23 percent of the interviewed parents do not understand it as reading aloud when they look at Wimmelbücher together with their children or read texts from the e-reader. Looking at babies' simple picture books is not one in every fifth respondent.

It is precisely these read-aloud activities from the outset that are important impulses for the development of children, as the clients of the study emphasize in a communication.

Reading aloud therefore does not just work with books: telling a fairytale without a book, using picture-book apps, or inventing and telling a story freely is one of them. Or even wider: look at brochures, pictures on your smartphone or photo books and then talk about it or sing songs.

So often should parents read aloud:

However, the study also complains that reading aloud in the narrower sense is still lacking in many families. Around a third of parents do not read their children too well. Accordingly, 16 percent of parents read only once a week to their children, 8 percent rarely do so, and another 8 percent never do so.

These figures have hardly changed since 2013, according to information. The study authors urge parents therefore urgently for increased reading. Your recommendation: 15 minutes daily.

more on the subject

Pre-reading tips from SPIEGELThese books inspire children - and parents

"Children who have been read regularly regularly find it easier to read, they later read more intensively and prefer to read as children without this experience," says Simone Ehmig, director of the Reading and Media Research Institute of the Stiftung Lesen.

"When reading aloud, the children themselves are not the challenge," says Ehmig. "We have to motivate the parents, their everyday life and what they often do already consciously and regularly implement - even with stories, picture books, fairy tales or Wimmel books."

Further findings of the study:

Formally higher educated read more often - even if they have less time : Half of the parents with a high school diploma, middle or real degree or who were in high school, but did not have their high school diploma, reads to their children rarely or not at all - unlike parents with intermediate or higher education.

While according to the study just under three quarters of mothers read to their children at least several times a week, it is the fathers only about 40 percent . "Mothers are still the main caregivers of children in many families during the week," says Simone Ehmig. "Fathers find reading aloud important, but rarely do it because they do not see themselves in that role." They would rather deal differently with their children - for example on joint excursions.

It also plays a role in whether the mothers have a steady job or not. Working mothers would read more than non-working people, according to the study: By comparison, 27 percent of working mothers read too seldom , compared to 39 percent of non-working women.