In this dissertation two studies are reported to explore the relation between parents’ goals for, beliefs about, and behaviour during parent-child shared book reading. In the first study, 92 parents rated the importance of potential reasons for reading with their children using the Parent Goals for Shared Reading Questionnaire (Evans & Williams, 2003). Ratings were completed longitudinally each year from their child’s junior kindergarten to grade 1 year. Factor analysis largely confirmed previous cross-sectional findings that the questionnaire items reflect distinct parent goals for shared book reading, including fostering reading skills, stimulating development, engaging in an enjoyable activity, and experiencing closeness with their child. The second study used data from the senior kindergarten year of this same sample of children to investigate the relation between parents’ beliefs about how to teach reading, how highly they rated fostering reading skills as a goal versus non-reading goal subsets, and their behaviour during shared book reading (i.e., the nature of the extratextual comments and error corrections made). Results demonstrated that, as parent goals to foster children’s reading skills increase, their tendency to provide the correct word in response to their child’s miscues decreases. When goals to foster reading skills were high, parents were more likely to use strategies that help their child to read misread words, regardless of their ratings of goals to engage in a positive experience with their child. However, when goals to foster reading skills were low, increasing ratings of the goal to engage in a positive experience related to decreasing instances of parents helping their child to read misread words. Furthermore, the goal to engage in a positive experience with one’s child was positively related to extratextual conversation not related to teaching reading but only when goals to foster reading skills were also low. Finally, goals to foster reading and constructivist beliefs both made independent contributions to the prediction of parents’ use of context cues to correct reading errors. Implications of these findings for literacy intervention programs targeted at the shared-book reading interaction are discussed.

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between a parents' goals for their children and their parenting behaviors. An ecological framework (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1990) provides the primary theoretical basis for the study, locating the relationship between parent goals and parent practices within a network of other influences on parenting practices, such as family income, ethnicity, parent educational level, and the degree of similarity in temperament between parent and child. Three different types of parental goals were investigated, using the Parenting Goals Questionnaire (Martin, Halverson, & Hollett-Wright,1991); achievement, independence, and respect for parents. These goals were relevant to subscales of the Child Rearing Practices Questionnaire (Block, 1986). Results indicated partial support for a relationship between parenting goals and parenting practices. The hypothesized link was found for independence-oriented goals and practices, and for traditional goals and authoritarian behavior, but not for traditional goals and parental encouragement of emotional expression. / Ph. D.

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