The outcomes of teacher training workshop on parent education focusing on reading with children

Abstract

This study examined the overall impact of an inservice program, What to Do When You Read With Children, on one particular elementary school. The study was composed of a pre-test and a post-test, each consisting of a teacher questionnaire, a parent questionnaire, a student interview, and an interview with the workshop participants. Participating were 26 teachers, 135 parents, and 41 students. The results indicated that prior to the workshop the teachers and parents exhibited positive attitudes toward the issue of parental reading to children as well as a good knowledge base of how to accomplish it. But, in spite of this, parents actually read aloud to their children very seldom, and little was done by the teachers to promote parental reading. The results of the study showed the inservice workshop to be very effective in bringing about positive teacher behaviors by providing them with specific tools to use in training parents. The effectiveness of the parent-training workshops, however, proved to be limited due to poor attendance. Alternative methods of parent education proved to be more effective than workshops and are to be encouraged. Included are descriptive data on the teacher, parent and student populations as well as recommendations for improving parent education on the topic of reading aloud to children.