Development of an Instrument for Measuring Parental Beliefs about Reading Aloud to Young Children

Abstract

This study assessed the psychometric properties of an instrument designed to measure parents' beliefs about the goals and process of reading aloud to young children. 155 parents of children ages 2 to 5 years completed the Parent Reading Belief Inventory. The inventory's items formed a single factor with high scores reflecting beliefs consistent with current theories of language acquisition and emergent literacy. The inventory had acceptable internal consistency (coefficients alpha for the scales ranged from .50 to .85) and short-term test-retest reliability of .79. When parental education and income were controlled, inventory scores remained significantly correlated .36 with self-report measures of parents' own book-reading habits, .40 with children's interest in books, and .30 with children's exposure to joint book-reading activities. Scores also showed significant partial correlations with the observed frequency of parental questions (.65) and responsiveness to children's speech (.41) during book-reading sessions.