BERA

Children Learning to Read: Exploring Home and School Relationships

Author(s): Pat Cuckle
Source: British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Feb., 1996), pp. 17-32
Published by: Wiley on behalf of BERA
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1501575 .
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British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1996 17

Children Learning to Read-exploring home

and school relationships

PAT CUCKLE, School of Education Universityof Leeds

ABSTRACTIt has long been accepted that parents can help their children with learning
to read in a variety of ways before children start school and as early readers. A recent
study exploredparental involvement,includingparents' knowledge of and beliefs about
reading processes, their reasonsfor helping, parents' perceptions of their roles and the
relationshipbetweenhome and school. The research suggested that although the parents
studied were competent helpers, they lacked confidence and would have liked more
advice from the schools. Their roles tended to changefrom the pre-school period to the
early years of schooling, and they helped for differing reasons related to a particular
'micro-culture'in the home.

Introduction
This article examines aspects of parents helping at home with reading, the focus being
on primary school children. However, a logical startingpoint is the help parents give
before childrenstartcompulsoryschool. Tizardet al. (1988), in their study of multiracial
infant school children, found that 61% of childrenhad at least occasional teaching such
as having letters and words pointed out to them or instructionin writing their names;
81% of children had stories read to them before they started school and this continued
during their first year at school. Parentsstudied by Hannon & James (1990) were keen
to help children of nursery school age. Despite being disadvantagedsocially (many of
the fathers were unskilled workers and more than a quarterwere unemployed), many
families provided a wide range of materials such as books, letter games, desks,
blackboards,alphabetcharts, videos and audiotapes,which they considered contributed
to literacy learning. Some 90% of parentsreportedthat their children had a high level
of interest in books, and they helped childrenwith reading and writing activities in the
context of pencil and paper play and story reading.More than half reportedthat literacy
activities were initiated by their children, children nearly always enjoyed the activities
and three-quartersof the parents enjoyed them too; the child's request and enjoyment
was a powerful incentive for helping.

0141-1926/96/010017-16 ? 1996 British Educational Research Association

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18 P. Cuckle

Once children have started school, parents may become involved in literacy in
differentways. Tizardet al. (1988) found thatparentshelped with copy writing and story
writing (giving difficult spellings); most parentshelped at least occasionally with reading
and nearly half listened to children reading frequently (5-7 times per week). Parental
involvement (PI) in reading seems to have become a very well-establishedpracticein the
last decade. One particularpiece of work on improving reading ability has been very
influential in promoting PI in various forms in primary schools. In an experiment in
Haringey (Hewison & Tizard, 1980), parents were given guidance in helping with
reading and home reading sessions were monitored regularly; considerable gains in
reading ability were demonstratedamongst children whose parents heard them read
regularly.Numerous similar schemes to involve parents,including families consideredto
be socially disadvantaged,are reviewed by Topping & Wolfendale (1985), Wolfendale
(1983) and Jones & Rowley (1990).
While the purpose of involving parentsin their children's reading may be to increase
reading ability, it is by no means clear that all forms of helping will bring about this
result. Jones & Rowley (1990), in their extensive review, conclude that there is evidence
that parentalhelp can improve reading,but not all studies have been able to demonstrate
this; they say that more informationabout why some schemes are more effective than
others is needed. Tizard (1987) proposed that reading improvementmay be dependent
on the amount of structurebuilt into the PI programme.
A great many of the PI schemes involve hearing children read (HCR) from books
provided by schools; this practiceis likely to startbetween the ages of 4 and 7 (Topping
& Wolfendale, 1985) when children are expected to read aloud to parents.By necessity,
parents will need to help with words that children cannot identify immediately (i.e.
difficult words). Hannon et al. (1986) showed that parentsand teachers employ a range
of similar strategieswhen they help with readingaloud;however, they say nothing about
why parents help as they do and research in this area may contribute valuable
information to add to what is known about how parents help.
There has been some work on parents' attitudes to PI that has given important
information. In a number of studies (Hannon & Cuckle, 1984; Tizard et al., 1988;
Hannon & James, 1990) teachers expressed fears about parents putting pressure
on children to read and write, especially before school. However, parents studied by
both Hannon & James (1990) and Tizard et al. (1988) were very concerned not to
apply pressure. Similarly, Holdaway's (1979) study found that parental pressure was
not a problem before and during the early years of education, when reading and
writing related activities arose naturally without the direction or notice of parents.
Regarding why parentshelp with reading, Tizard et al. (1988) found that once children
started school, virtually all parents gave some help with reading to their children at
home, feeling that help at home was a necessary partof their children's education. They
saw help as a part of the parental role and interest in their children's success, rather
than because of doubts about the school. Negative attitudes were expressed in that
some parentssaw helping as something of a burden,somethingfor which it was difficult
to find the time, and expressed concerns about confusing their children.
Jones & Rowley (1990) propose that more researchis needed to investigate individual
differences amongst parents participatingwith respect to the nature and extent of their
participationand favourable circumstancesthat may contributeto effective PI. Further
researchon attitudesto helping and details of helping would be valuable, as would data
on the relationships between home and school. A study is now described which
investigated aspects of these issues.

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 ChildrenLearning to Read 19

Study Methods
The Purpose of the Study
The research being reported was part of a larger study concerned with comparing the
literacy experiences of individual children at home and school and the factors that
affected experiences (Moorcroft-Cuckle,1993). The purpose was to open up an area of
study and develop appropriateresearch tools using observation, survey and interview
techniques. A model of 'curriculum' design was proposed based on teachers' and
parents' beliefs and knowledge about literacy and literacy learning,together with social,
psychological and practicalfactors affecting design. The term 'curriculum'was used in
order to describe and compare the factors which influence literacy experiences at home
and school; however in the case of home, there was no suggestion of a formal
curriculum.The age range 4-6 was chosen in orderto investigate children's experiences
at different ages, and changes that might occur.
The main concern of the study was to compareexperiences for individualchildrenand
similar data were collected in the same way in home and school. This article concen-
trates on one section of the study and addresses three questions:

(1) What do parentsknow or believe aboutthe process of learningto read and how does
their knowledge affect how they help?
(2) What are parents' reasons for helping and how does helping fit in with home life?
(3) What is the relationship between home and school with regard to helping with
reading?

The intentionwas to study a small sample (11 children,their parentsand teachers)from

schools with a socially and ethnically mixed population, in order to study different
settings; the parentsand children were approachedinitially throughthe schools. Details
of the sample are described and summarisedlater.

The Schools
Three heads, in schools suggested by a local education authority (LEA) officer, were
approachedand the heads all agreed to take part. The three schools were housed in
similar Victorian buildings in the same Inner London borough. All were surroundedby
very mixed housing, that is privately owned or rented, multi-occupancy houses and
council-owned accommodation.The schools served a socially mixed populationwith a
number of ethnic minority groups represented,although no single group was in large
numbers.The heads nominatedteachersthey thoughtwould be willing to participateand
the researchermet the teachersindividuallyto explain the project.Five teachersfrom the
three schools agreed to take part.
All schools used the PACT system (Parentsand ChildrenTogether, see Bloom, 1987)
whereby books were regularlytaken from school to home by childrento be 'shared',that
is read by or with adults or read aloud by the child as appropriate.A notebook or card
for parents',teachers' or children'scommentswas taken with the book. The Year 1 class
and the two reception classes of school 1 relied heavily on 'Breakthroughto Literacy'
(Mackay et al., 1970) and used a gradedreading scheme and a skills-based approachto
teach reading.The teacherwould usually decide which book the child should take home
with the intention that the child should read aloud to an adult; occasionally the child
would be asked to choose the book. The reception class of school 2 and the nursery

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20 P. Cuckle

class used a 'language experience' or 'apprentice'approachto reading (see Waterman,

1985) and the child chose a book freely to take home and 'share'.

Selecting the Sample

Teachers were asked to help select two or three childrento take part in the study. It was
hoped to have a sample of children at different stages in the process of learningto read,
therefore children were divided by the teacher into three groups described as follows:
'have made a very good startin reading', 'are doing quite well' or 'has not made much
of a start yet'. For the purposes of the study these groups were described respectively
as 'high', 'middle' and 'low' literacy levels.
Considerable discussion took place with the nursery and reception class teachers
concerning these categories, though they were less problematicfor the Year 1 teacher.
Teachers were reluctantto 'label' children and related their assessments to such factors
as what was known of the children's pre-school experiences, family circumstances,the
time the child had been in school and general levels of maturity.Apart from the Year
1 class, teachers were reluctantto include a child from the groups that had made the least
progress, as they felt that questions about reading might make parentsbecome anxious
and conclude that their child might not be progressingwell or had a problem. Also, all
teachers were reluctantto include a small group of parentswhom they consideredwould
be unable to take part because of stressful family circumstancesor lack of English.
Within these limitations the sample was selected at random from different ability
groups, and was judged to be sufficiently mixed in terms of literacy development and
social circumstances for the purposes of the study (which was to compare literacy
experiences at home and school in individualcases and to develop appropriateresearch
tools ratherthan to generalise results).

The Sample of Parents and Children

The ethnic backgroundsof the children were as follows: one black, two Asian, seven
white and one mixed race. Apart from one child whose parents had arrivedin the last
decade from the Indian subcontinent,all children came from homes where English was
the first language.
Parentswere not asked specifically about their occupationsor the family structure,but
in all cases some informationemerged and this is summarisedin Table I. Three children,
including one who was living for an indefinite period in the care of her grandmother
because of family illness, were from single-parentfamilies.
The children in the reception class and Year 1 had attendednurseryclass for at least
a year on a half-time basis before entering the reception class, as would the 4 year-old
children in the nursery class. Although parents were not asked about playgroup
experience, it was likely that many of the childrenhad attendedplaygroupsas there was
generally good provision in the borough. The sample of 11 children, their parents and
their five classes is summarisedin Table I.

Approaching the Parents

The teachers all wished to invite parentspersonally to take part in the study, to ensure
that parents would not worry that any problem with the child's reading was implied.
After the teacher obtained verbal agreement to participate, the researcher contacted

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 ChildrenLearning to Read 21

TABLE of thesample
I. Summary
Genderand
School Class* age of child Literacylevel Parent(s)interviewed Parent'soccupation

1 N M4 High Father Businessman

Mother Scientist
1 N F4 High Mother Teacher
1 R F5 Middle Mother Designer
1 R F5 High Mother FurtherEducationTeacher
1 R M5 High Father Doctor
Mother Doctor
1 R M5 Middle Mother Ex-teacher
2 R M5 Middle Mothert Secretary
2 R F5 High Mother Journalist
3 Yl M6 Low Mothert Play leader
3 Y1 F6 High Mother Not working
3 Y1 F6 Middle Grandmothert Not working

class,Y1 = Year1;tSingleparent;
"*N= Nurseryclass,R = Reception M = male,F = female.

parents by letter (both parents, except in two cases known to be single parents and a
grandmotherhaving care) explaining the purposeof the project, what was involved and
estimating the time it would take. (Only two fatherstook partwith mothersin interviews
and recordedreading sessions, althoughit was reportedthat fathers often read stories to
children and sometimes heardchildren read.Where both parentstook part in interviews,
their attitudesdid not differ substantiallyand so the data were counted as being from one
source.) A few days after the parents received the letter, the researchertelephoned to
check whether they wished to take part and to allow the opportunityfor them to ask
questions. All parents approachedagreed to take part, and three were very enthusiastic
about having the opportunityto discuss reading matters.

Collecting the Parents' and Children's Data

Parents filled in a check-list of reading and writing activities that took place at home,
took part in a detailed interview about their attitudes to helping and took part in a
recordedreading-aloudsession duringwhich the parentswere asked why they helped as
they did. Hearing children read was chosen as a focus as it is such a common practice
in PI schemes. All data collection with parents took place in their homes at their
convenience. All completed the check-lists and returnedthem to the researcherprior to
the interviews; this allowed the researcherto phrase some of the interview questions
according to their responses. The check-lists were returnedto the participantsfor perusal
for a few minutes before the interview to allow parentsto focus their attentionon the
subject of literacy.
In three cases the children were at home during the parents' interviews (in the same
room part of the time) by parentalchoice. The recordingsessions of reading aloud took
place after the interview in those three cases, in five other cases a second visit was made
to the home for the recording. In three cases, the parentsdid not wish to take part in a
recorded session due to shortageof time. For the recordings,parents were asked to use
the book the child had broughthome, just as they usually did; no parents indicatedthat
they were worried by the tape-recorderor the presence of the researcher.

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22 P. Cuckle

Limitations of the Method

The study was partly one of attitudes, with the inherent limitations of attitudinal
research;beliefs are not always a reflection of behaviour. But the attitudinaldata were
complementedby survey, documentaryevidence of writtenwork from home and school
and recordedobservation.Data from differentsources matchedvery well, althoughsome
adults were observed to do more than they reportedin the survey and interview. There
is always a problem of observer effect on behaviour to consider; however, the
observations were not judged to be especially intrusive and the reliability of the
observational data were tested by comparing recorded sessions of reading without the
researcherbeing present.

Results
Parents' Knowledge of Reading
It did not seem appropriateto ask parents directly about their theories concerning the
process of learning to read, as when teachers had been asked about theories of learning
(Whitaker & Monte, 1988) they had been unable to provide adequate examples of
theories. Parents and teachers were asked directly how they thought children learned to
read but the parents' and teachers' knowledge of theory was investigated mainly by
indirect means. Insights into how parentsthought children learned to read were gained
by observing how they helped children to read difficult words and by asking how
children reading aloud and the parents reading stories to children helped their reading.
Combining answers provided a descriptionof the underlyingtheories or beliefs held by
individuals. All parents mentioned at least one mental process they believed to be
involved in learning to read such as connecting the written letters to sounds, blending
sounds together, memorising certain words and making general sense of what was
written by knowing what would sound reasonablein the sentence. Six mentioned using
the pictures to make sense of what was written;however three discouragedpictureclues
by covering the picture and disapprovedof guessing or relying on the context, believing
it would make children overdependent in the long term. Three parents mentioned
specifically that they thoughtthat reading was a complex process involving a numberof
skills. Reinforcement of the skills children were learning was thought to be very
importantand children reading to adults was considered an importantopportunityfor
reinforcement.Four parents mentioned specifically that children were likely to learn in
different ways, at different speeds and that some words would be easier to read than
others.
All parentsbelieved that childrenwould have to be taughtreading skills directly;they
did not believe that their children would learn to read solely by listening to stories.
However, they all thought reading stories to children was an importantway for children
to acquire useful knowledge about reading before they started the formal learning
process and each parent mentioned at least two of the following ways in which reading
stories aloud would help:
* Provides a model of correct reading.
* Promotes pleasure and interest in books and motivates children to want to read for
themselves.
* Helps recognition of frequently occurring words, spelling patterns and letters, es-
pecially if pointing accompanies reading.

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 ChildrenLearning to Read 23

"*Encourages questions about reading.

"*Demonstratesthe connection between the spoken and written word.
"*Conveys a sense of the value of reading.
"*Satisfies the child's demands and curiosity about reading.
"*Teaches basics about book use and reading, i.e. turning pages, direction of print,
narrativestyle and intonation.
"*Demonstratesextracting meaning from both environmentalprint and text.
These benefits are similar to those listed by Teale (1984). Their beliefs were compatible
with those of Adams (1990) whose view is that to read childrenmust understandabout
both the code, that is the relationshipbetween the phonologicaland orthographicfeatures
of language, and the relationshipbetween print and meaning. Further,parents' beliefs
and practices are compatible with Adams's view that reading emerges from what
children have been learning aboutbooks, reading,printand meaning in early childhood,
'throughregularand active engagementwith printin the pre-school period before formal
learning begins'.
Asked from where they got their knowledge about reading processes and the
practicalitiesof helping with reading, all parentsreferredto more than one source. The
main source was said by 10 parentsto be the experience gained as they went along, and
the four parents who had helped an older child felt themselves to be at an advantage.
Three parents said they used their own memories of learning to read and six said they
had read articles or books about reading. Three had discussed it with other parentsand
three parents had experience of language teaching, special needs teaching and nursery
nurse trainingwhich they said helped. Only four parentssaid they had discussed helping
with teachers.

How Parents Helped in the Pre-school Period

All 11 of the parents in the study reportedthat they had taken part with their children
in activities associated with literacy in the pre-school period to some extent. They
reportedtaking part in at least one of the following: reading stories and rhymes, writing
and readingnames and captions, readingprint in the environment,encouragingchildren
to write messages, tracing letters with the fingers, making words from magnetic letters,
providing story tapes, pointing to words when reading books, reading aloud interesting
parts of newspapers and magazines, asking comprehension questions about stories,
giving simple spellings for the child to write, providing work books for reading and
writing and encouraging their children to turn pages and recite the appropriatestory
('pretendreading'). These activities were similarto the activities describedby parentsin
the studies by Hannon & James (1990) and Tizard et al. (1988). After children had
started a nursery class at about 31 years old, parents continued the pre-school literacy
activities. Three parentsreportedthat their childrenhad become particularlyinterestedin
environmental print and attempting to read their own writing, activities which the
children seemed to find more relevantthan trying to read books. Apart from occasional
words that children could identify correctly, parents did not hear children read aloud
before they were in the reception class.

Parents Helping after Children Started School

The assumption when hearing children read was that children would identify words

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24 P. Cuckle

accurately and would be helped by the adult when there was a difficulty. This activity
was initiated by the teachers when they sent books home some time after children
entered the reception class. There are similaritieshere with the findings of Tizard et al.
(1988) whereby HCR became 'added on' to other readingactivities after children started
school. In the present study, HCR became the main way that parents helped in that
parents gave it considerabletime and regardedit as an importantactivity in the process
of learning to read.
Parents used their beliefs about reading as a combinationof skills when they helped
with reading. This was regardless of the approachesto teaching reading ('real books',
language experience, graded reading schemes, visual and phonics skills) taken by the
teachers. Analysing tape-recordingsof reading aloud sessions gave some very important
informationabout the natureof PI in reading.They explained their strategiesfor helping
in relation to their 'theory' of learning to read and according to their knowledge of the
child.
Like the work by Hannon et al. (1986), the study demonstratedthat both parentsand
teachers used a number of different strategies in helping children with difficult words,
and both sets of adults helped in similar ways. Parentswere able to use the knowledge
they had about reading to help their children with unknown words. The data concerning
helping children read difficult words, being a small set, were analysed according to the
categories that Campbell (1986 and 1988) devised. He refers to children's inaccurate
responses as miscues to indicate that children know something about a word; adults'
'moves' (ways of helping to identify a word) are categorised in the following ways.
(1) Adults may not respond (i.e. may ignore) a 'good' miscue which is semanticallyand
syntactically correct,e.g. 'He ran down to his house' for 'He ran back to his house'.
(2) For unacceptablemiscues there are a number of moves as follows:
(a) Word cueing where the intonation may be questioning and suggests the child tries
again, e.g.,
Child: It may by ...
Parent: It may ...
Child: It may be ...
(b) Negative feedback, e.g. 'It's not "by"'
(c) Provide, i.e. tells the word.
(d) Phonic analysis, i.e. connected with the sound of the word, such as the initial letter.
(e) Comprehension-using a semantic clue:
Child: It was a ... little house ...
Parent: Nearly ... it means the same
Child: ... small house
Parent: That's right, well done.
or using a picture clue:
Child: ... and the stick fell in the ..
Adult: Where did it fall? Look at the picture ..
Child: ... fell in the pond.
Sessions of HCR were tape-recordedand parents were asked at convenient points why
they helped as they did. Observations demonstrated that parents had considerable
competence, helped in the above ways and also in ways they did not mention in their
interviews or check-lists; it appearedthat they employed strategieswithout realising how

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 Children Learning to Read 25

helpful they were, e.g. readingwith the child and leaving a pause at the end of a sentence
to allow the child to supply a salient word:
Parent: He pulls and pulls, but he can't pull up the enormous ...
Child: ... turnip!
This parentwas apparentlynot aware of how she was helping at the time but later, when
questioned, explained: 'I don't think I was [conscious] actually ... I suppose I do it just
for him to recognise. It's the easiest thing to rememberand it's always at the end of the
page'.
Parentsreportedthat the way they helped usually dependedon their knowledge of the
child's ability and the familiarityof the reading material. If they thought that the child
was capable of understandingsomething of the correspondence between sounds and
words they would often help with a phonic cue, e.g. an initial sound. Where a word was
considered phonetically easy or regulara parentmight help with more sounds. Helping
to sound the words 'wake' and 'like' one parentof a 5 year-old explained a rule he had
taught the previous week: 'Well we went throughthat last week, when there was "e" at
the end, it makes "ah" into "ay". I just remindedhim of what we had said'.
If they knew that the child had met the word before, especially if they were using a
graded reading scheme, parents might expect the child to rememberthe word. Parents
might give a linguistic, picture or phonic clue or simply ask the child to look again to
aid the memory. One mother could have accepted a 'good' miscue: 'It swallowed the
fish' for 'It took the fish'; this fitted syntactically and semantically but she encouraged
the child to try several times, explaining: 'Well, because we've read it before and he got
it right ... that's why I said to him to go back and read it again to see if it might jog
his memory'. Parentsmight point the word out in anotherplace to aid recognition: 'No,
look at it there ... you've had that word ... just said it. Where else is it on the page?'
If the word was regarded as irregular,infrequentlyused or long and difficult, they
would not necessarilyexpect it to be rememberedand may supply it. Supplyingthe word
'began', a mother explained: 'I didn't think she would have met it many times before
and wouldn't be able to sound it'. Parentsallowed children to use what strategies they
could to identify a difficult word and encouragedmore than one strategy for any one
word. However, they were keen to keep the momentum of the reading going and the
level of frustrationlow, so sometimes supplieda word after an initial attemptto help the
child identify a difficult word. In the case of 'all' a parent explained: 'Well it's one of
those you have to ... sort of learn ... it's not like one with "ing" on the end, and you
know that's "ing".'

Why Parents Help

It seemed that once children startedschool parentshelped children with readingfor two
reasons. First, they were already involved in reading activities (described earlier) and
had been long before the child startednurseryor even playgroup(i.e. before 3 years old).
The children's literacy activities at the age of 4-6 were a continuationof a well-estab-
lished practice.Memories were faded and it was not always clear exactly how and when
literacy activities had startedat home but parentsdescribedhow they had read stories to
their children from an early age, in one case from as early as 9-12 months; some
children hadjoined in story readingwith older siblings. One parentsaid that books were
an easily obtainedand guaranteedsource of entertainmentfrom an early stage; however,
another parent said that her child had disliked having stories read (which the mother

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26 P. Cuckle

found difficult to understand).Four parentsmentionedan early interest in writing which

had led to an interest in books and reading and two others said that their children had
been particularlyinterestedin the parentsreading aloud environmentalprint in the street
and in shops. As with the parents in the study by Tizard et al. (1988), there was the
implication that literacy activities were a naturalpartof the parentalrole. There was also
the suggestion that activities occurred spontaneously(see Holdaway, 1979) or occurred
at a child's specific request.
Second, parents helped because there was an expectation or a direct request from the
teachers (including the nurseryteacher) to help. (Nearly half of the parentsin the study
by Tizard et al. [1988] listened to reading from books sent home by the teachers.)
Although all parents in the study helped to some extent, their willingness to help varied,
as did the time they could find to help given other family commitments.Three parents
very much enjoyed helping, two felt that they 'should' (their word) and seven believed
the child would make more progress if they helped. For instance:
Parents should help, I mean, I enjoy helping. I enjoyed it when my older one
was little ... I know I make the effort and the time to do it ... I always make
sure I have the time to help ... I want them to get on ... and reading is
important.
A grandmother(caring for the child due to parentalillness) was particularlymotivated
to help because the child was behind in reading when she came to live with her
grandmotherat 61 and moved schools: 'from the beginning, once I knew she couldn't
read I was keen to be involved ...' Besides, this grandparentenjoyed helping and
learning herself about the process of readingthroughher experiences with the child and
was enthusiastic about the check-list of reading activities (questionnaire)completed for
the study prior to the interview:
I'm just curious because I know nothing aboutreadingyou see. I mean, it's my
first experience of being involved in that sense ... and since I've done that
questionnaire,it's given me ideas about doing more ...
Negative attitudeswere expressed about helping. Three parentshelped because they felt
the teachercould not have enough time to give sufficientindividualattention.One parent
felt home help was essential 'with the pupil/teacherratio as it is', although like other
parents, she doubted if she would help as much if the child had been making more
obvious progress at school, saying: 'I think if you put her in another ... teaching
situation ... I don't know that I'd feel quite so much that our role was so important...'
Two parents thought that responsibilityfor teaching reading lay firmly with the teacher
but helped because they perceived a failure in the school system. One parent appeared
to help reluctantly, saying:
We are sending the child to school every single day, they have actually got to
sort certain things out, not put it back on the parents ... my feeling is that the
problem is right squarely back with the school.
One nurseryclass parentdisapprovedof the books available to her child from school and
preferredto provide her own materials for the child's use at home, using the school's
books only if the child asked for them specifically.
Helping was seen to be something of a burdenin the study by Tizard's et al. (1988),
and similarly, in this study, fitting in reading with other family commitments was not
usually easy. Limiting factors were the child's tiredness or irritabilitywhen s/he came
home from school, after-school activities, shortageof time due to being a single parent,

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 ChildrenLearning to Read 27

having heavy work commitments and the demandsof other children towards the end of
the day. Regardingthe potential problemof parentalpressureto read that some teachers
express (Hannon & Cuckle, 1984; Tizard et al., 1988; Hannon & James, 1990), this
study showed that fears were unfoundedas pressureto read was strongly disapprovedof
by all parents. Five parents emphasised that home provided a more conducive atmos-
phere than school in which to read aloud as the parents could give the necessary
uninterruptedtime and a more relaxed atmosphere.Five others implied the importance
of a relaxed atmosphereby leaving the final decision to read to the child, and resisted
pressuringan unwilling child to read. Only one parent (a single working mother) had a
routine whereby she set aside time (from a very tight domestic schedule) to help with
writing and hearingreading on a nightly basis; she said both enjoyed the sharedactivity.
The 10 others thoughtthat a routineput undesirablepressureon their young childrenand
wanted to avoid this.
It was difficult for parentsto say how much time they spent with non-school directed
activities, but they were able to report the time they spent helping with school books;
five helped for 5-10 minutes every day, while one helped for that time most days. Three
helped for about5 minutes three times a week, while one reportedspendingan hour once
or twice a week in different literacy activities such as cutting out words from packets to
make sentences, writing and reading captions for pictures as well as hearing the child
read aloud. One parent said she tended to 'let it slip' and helped with reading once in
2 weeks.

Parents' Perceptions of their Competenceas Helpers

Despite the competence they demonstratedwhen they describedhome reading activities

and in the tape-recordingsof hearing children read, a major factor that emerged with
regardto the natureof PI was that parentstended to underestimatetheir own abilities;
they lacked confidence in what they were doing. Only three parents indicated that they
were entirely confidentabout the way they helped. Eight parentsexpressed doubts about
whether what they were doing was right and were concerned that they did not help in
the same way as teachers, and two were concernedthat they might confuse the child if
home and school methods varied. Confusion when parents help with reading is
something that worries teachers (Cuckle & Hannon, 1985; Hannon & James, 1990).
Parents and teachers were asked whether they thought children experienced confusion
and childrenwere asked after their sessions of readingwith parentsor teacherswho they
liked to help them with reading, what help they liked and if they ever got 'muddled' or
'mixed-up' by different ways of helping; no participantreportedany confusion.

Perceptions of the Guidance Given by the Schools

Parentswho lacked confidence said they needed guidance and expected it to come from
the school; the overridingfeeling amongst parentswas that the teachers should be very
clear about whether they should help and how they should help. All parents said that
teachers had not asked them to do anything in particular;the help they gave and
strategies they employed came from their own initiative.
Ten parents in the study expressed the view that the school should do the main
teaching; they were willing to help but were not willing to take over the teaching
role--they saw the teachers as the experts. One parent of a nursery class child did not
wish for advice; she preferredher own books and her own system. Eight said that they

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28 P. Cuckle

would like more specific instructions, two expressed strongly that they should have
informationby right if they were to be asked to help, and all these 10 said they would
like to understandmore about helping the child to progress systematically. However,
parentswere ambivalentabouthow help should be given. Five parentsmentionedwritten
instructionsbeing sent home but were vague aboutthe contents;one parentexpressed the
general attitudeby saying of such instructions:'I have read it-but I didn't retain much
of it ... in my mind-I must have read it very quickly and put it down somewhere and
it disappeared'.They were not keen to go to workshops, two saying that they probably
would not find the time if they were invited; six said they would prefer individual
consultationsabout helping even though they thoughtthis might be impracticalgiven the
demands on teacher time. Most striking,there was an unwillingness amongst parentsto
go and ask specifically for help, because they were reluctantto 'fuss' or supposed that
teachers would be too busy to see them; only four of the 11 parents said that they had
discussed reading methods with teachers. These results are similar to other studies, e.g.
only 18% of parents (Tizard et al., 1988) said teachers had given them instructionand
Hannon & James (1990) found that while most parentswould have liked to know more
about helping and thought that the nursery teacher would be able to give advice, only
10% of the parents had either received advice or asked directly about helping.
Tizard et al. (1988) reportedthat 30% of teachers said that the majority of parents
would provide help if necessary, 20% thought that few or none would help; both parents
and teachers thought home environmentwas important,although none mentioned that
they thought home-school links important.In the present study, teachers were asked
about their expectation of parental help and about the guidance they gave to parents
regardinghelping children to read at home. All were enthusiasticabout parentshelping
and said most of the parentsof their class were cooperative;they could think of very few
cases where parents had ever been counter-productive.All five said that progress
depended on parents giving help at home, that it made a difference to reading progress,
for example: '... it's very noticeable, taking those that I mentioned ... who are not heard
at home ... it's very noticeable, their reading skill ...'
Teachers said that they talked about helping in general at parents' meetings and
occasionally sent home general written material about helping. However, teachers
expected parents to help only if they wanted to; they did not give explicit instructions
about how to hear reading or share books at home unless parents asked individually.
They were very concerned about putting undue pressureon parentsto help as all five of
the teachers thought that a lot of parents already had many domestic pressuresto cope
with, such as personalrelationships,unemploymentand more than one very young child.
These attitudes compare with teachers in the study by Tizard et al. (1988), many of
whom said parents should only help if helping was pleasurable.

Communicationbetween Parents and Teachers

There was considerablediscontentamongst parentsabout the directive role of the school
and confusion between parents and teachers concerning what instructions had been
given and how teachers imagined parents' practice. Teachers sometimes made false
assumptions about both parents' knowledge and behaviour. For instance, one teacher
said she thought a particularparentsupportiveand was confident that she knew how to
help as she had an older child in the school (it was notable that the older child had been
in a different infant school and had serious difficulties with reading!) The parent
concerned understoodneither how the 'real books' approachwas used to teach reading

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 ChildrenLearning to Read 29

in her daughter'sclass, nor the teacher's expectationof parentalhelp and said: '[I have]
absolutely no idea how they are handling it at school ... I don't know what they're
expecting parents to do ... I've no idea at all'. Another teacher assumed there was a
highly favourableatmosphereto readingin the home of a professional couple where, in
fact, the father rarely read due to a specific reading difficulty and the mother was not
proudto admit that she failed to provide a positive model as she very rarelyread herself.
While parentsmay want teachersto give very explicit instructionsor advice, teachers
talking to parents about helping may not always have the intended effect. One teacher
reported that she thought the pictures the most importantpart of early reading and
regularly talked about this aspect to parents;she thought one particularparentwas very
co-operative and helpful. The parent said she asked regularly about helping, and was
satisfied with the teacher's instructions;yet she covered the pictures when hearing the
child read to make sure he knew the words, a practiceof which the teacher clearly would
not have approved. This is a clear illustration of a parent doing what she thought
suitable, despite asking the advice of the teacher. SimilarlyElliott (1991) describedhow
parents were trained in the techniques of paired reading, but sometimes were either
mistaken in thinkingthat they were following instructionsor chose not to do so.
Finding the time to talk to parents was not always easy for teachers, either because
of other professional commitments and limits on time or because parents could not
always go into school because of work or family matters needing attention. Teachers
relied heavily on the PACT notebook as a means of communicationbetween home and
school in all classes. Seven parents perceived the notebook as a record of books read
with generalised comments on how the child had responded to individual books. No
parents expressed enthusiasm for the notebooks-two found PACT books stilted and
found the filling in a chore. One teacher believed that the notebook was particularly
useful for exchanging meaningful, and useful comments on the children's reading,
especially when parents were not able to go into school often. Yet one parent, with
whom she undoubtedlyhad a positive and supportiverelationship said: 'I fill this in
basically so we can get some more books-a different set of books'. Only two parents
regardedthe PACT notebook as having any useful communicativefunction in exchang-
ing helpful comments. One commented that teachers differed in how they used PACT
notebooks and she took the lead from the teacher in writing comments: '... it can be
quite probing-asking questions instead of just giving titles ... I would be encouraged
to write a bit more'. Generally, parents' comments concerning communicating about
helping with reading and progress being made reflecteddissatisfactionwith the schools'
expectations and level of instruction.

Discussion
In the study described, examining accounts of pre-school experiences and the pro-
gression of children from the nursery-classthrough to Year 1 showed that the active
engagement in reading experiences at home in the pre-school period continued after
children startedreceptionclass. From that time parentsengaged in more formal teaching
which took the form of hearing childrenread, initiatedby the school when teacherssent
books home with children;this was similar to what other importantstudies e.g. Tizard
et al. (1988) found.
Wolfendale (1983) writes that there is a 'folklore' that teachers do not like parentsto
teach readingpre-school or augmentschool-basedwork at home. But she also writes that
if parents are manifestly involved to any extent, then their children's development and

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30 P. Cuckle

educational progress are promptedand enhanced. Teachers in this study were keen for
parents to help if they wished to, and believed that progress in reading depended on
parental involvement. However, they were concerned that parents should not apply
pressure to children to read, and parents likewise were united in disapprovingof and
avoiding pressure.
Parents were willing to help, but lacked confidence in their abilities. They wanted
advice from the 'expert' teachers, and were dissatisfied with what was offered. They
were reluctantto ask for help and this is a similar result to other studies. In the Hannon
& James (1990) study, while most parentswould have liked to know more about helping
and thought that the nursery teacher would be able to give advice, only 10% of the
parents had either received advice or asked directly about helping with literacy.
Similarly, Tizard et al. (1988) found that teachers attempted to advise parents and
explain their approachto reading if they were asked, but depended on parents seeking
them out rather that making specific approaches to parents. All five teachers in the
present study indicated that they were willing to share knowledge and act as consultants
and this seemed a useful startingpoint for teachers to adopt if they expected parentsto
help with reading. But there was dissatisfaction amongst parents with the system for
supporting parental involvement, and this may generally be counter-productivein
enlisting effective parentalinvolvement.
The teachers,parentsand childrenlacked the truepartnershipdescribedby Wolfendale
(1983). Writing of 'client' partnershipin general (including parental partnershipin
children's learning), she writes that partnersare characterisedby an active and central
role in decision-making, have equal strengthsand expertise and reciprocity in services
(i.e. contributesomething to the knowledge of the child and his/her learning as well as
receiving it), share responsibility and need to be as accountableas the professionals. It
seems clear that there is no true partnershipin a situation where parents cannot let
teachers know about their uncertainty, do not understandthe system, cannot convey
knowledge of their children's progress at home and cannot make clear their perceptions
of their own role in children's learning.
Jones & Rowley (1990) wrote that it was important to know about individual
differences amongst parents in relation to the natureand extent of their participationin
helping-that is, the differences which might contribute to the character of parental
participation.Moon & Raban (1992) wrote that the literacy provision made in the home
(i.e. buying books, comics, pens, pencils, paper, crayons, plus libraryvisits and reading
stories) is importantto reading success at 7 and not the 'crude measures' of father's
occupation or the educational level of the parents. Clark's (1978 and 1984) 'early
readers' apparentlyachieved their status by the interest their parents had in books and
in helping the child and the warm and active interest they had generally in their
children's development. Moon & Wells (1979) say that the positive attitude of parents
to the child's education related to success; the specific context of the family's attitude
to literacy and the way it penetratestheir lives is important.The present study suggests
that the help parents were preparedto give depends on the particular'micro-culture'in
the home which may determine the nature and extent of participation.Consideringthe
social status of the group studied, it was perhapssurprisingthat there was a relative lack
of enthusiasmexpressed for participatingin children's learning and there were certainly
no 'early readers' reportedamongst the children. Attitudes to helping differed amongst
parentsaccording to individual circumstances.Some very highly educated parents were
not tliemselves keen readers;one single parentmade a point of finding the time to help
while anothersimilar parentdid not. A grandmotherwas keen to learn about readingand

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 ChildrenLearning to Read 31

help, but was hamperedby lack of time, energy and family problems. Other families
were clear that they did not consider it their role to compensate for the school's
shortcomingswhile other families saw readingwith their childrenas a way to satisfy the
child's demands and interests and spend 'quality time' with the children. There may be
importantdifferences in the reading 'atmosphere'that is created in the home that might
be usefully explored in furtherstudies.

Conclusion
The study described has contributedadditionaldata to what is already known about the
natureof parentalinvolvement in reading. It provides data on what parentsknow about
reading,how they use this knowledge to help and why they help. It is proposedthat their
help is a continuationof earlier activities at home and a result of the expectation of the
school for parental involvement. Their enthusiasm for helping depended on a set of
beliefs about their capability to help and beliefs about the respective roles of home and
school in learning; this seems to vary in accordancewith the particularculture in the
home.
If the aim in enlisting parents' help was to give children the best opportunityto
progress in reading, then the PI schemes may not have achieved optimum effectiveness;
they may have lacked necessary structure,as Tizard(1987) suggested. A crucial element
in helping may be the effectiveness of communicationbetween individual homes and
school.

Correspondence:Pat Cuckle, School of Education,University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT,

UK.

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