Investigation of the relationship between parents' reading belief and the language skills of 60-72 month-old-children (Afyonkarahisar -Turkey sample)

The development of language skills, which is largely completed in the first six years of human life with the support of children's parents, who are the closest environmental influence, and the adequate level of communication related to this are important for the development of self-confidence and academic success of individuals from childhood. In this context, studies on the subject will provide great benefits for individuals to spend their lives more productively. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the language skills of 60-72-month-old children and their parents' reading beliefs. The theoretical background has been revealed by scanning the literature about the concepts that make up the variables of the research. As data collection tools in the research, "General Information Form" to get information about children and their families, and K-SEALS (Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and Language Skills) which was adapted to Turkish by Uyanık and Kandır (2014) to determine the language skills of 60-72-month-old children and the "Parent Reading Belief Inventory" which was adapted into Turkish by Şimşek Çetin, Bay and Alisinanoğlu (2014) to determine the beliefs of the parents of the children within the scope of the study about the book reading process and purposes were all used. The population of the research in the relational screening model consisted of 60-72-month-old children who were attending to nursery classes and kindergartens located in the city center of Afyonkarahisar/Turkey during the 2019-2020 academic years. A total of 478 children and their parents who were randomly selected from the population and volunteered to participate in the research were included in the study. Pearson Correlation analysis and simple linear regression analysis were conducted together with descriptive statistics such as mean, mode, median in the calculations of the scores obtained from the tests. As a result of the research, it was found out that the reading beliefs of the parents were high, while the children's receptive language skills were above the mean, their expressive language skills were below the mean, and their composite language skills were at the mean level. It was determined that there was a significant relationship between parents' reading belief and children's language skills according to gender, number of siblings, duration of school attendance, and parental reading belief was a low predictor of receptive, expressive, and composite (receptive, expressive) language skills of 60-72-month-old children. Keywords: 60-72-month-old preschool children, receptive language, expressive language, parent reading belief.