T1 112006062 Full text
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading Motivation:
A Study in Kaliaman IV Elementary School Jepara
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Novita Wijanarti
112006062
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading Motivation :
A Study in Kaliaman IV Elementary School Jepara
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Novita Wijanarti
112006062
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013
ii
iii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or
accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my
knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other
person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2013. Novita Wijanarti and Victoria Usadya P. M.A., ELT
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the
permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of
Language and Literature, Satya Wacana University, Salatiga.
Novita Wijanarti:
iv
PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION
As a member of the (SWCU) Satya Wacana Christian University academic community, I
verify that:
Name
Student ID Number
Study Program
Faculty
Kind of Work
:
:
:
:
:
Novita Wijanarti
112006062
English
Language and literature
Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide SWCU with a non-exclusive royalty free right
for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Children’s Reading Motivation :
A Study in Kaliaman IV Elementary School Jepara
along with any pertinent equipment.
With this non-exclusive royalty free right, SWCU maintains the right to copy, reproduce, print,
publish, post, display, incorporate, store in or scan into a retrieval system or database, transmit,
broadcast, barter or sell my intellectual property, in whole or in part without my express written
permission, as long as my name is still included as the writer.
This declaration is made according to the best of my knowledge.
Made in
Date
: Salatiga
: February 8th, 2013
Verified by signee,
Novita Wijanarti
Approved by
Thesis Supervisor
Thesis Examiner
Victoria U. Palupi, M.A., ELT
Anne Indrayanti Timotius, M.Ed
v
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading Motivation:
A Study in Kaliaman IV Elementary School Jepara
Novita Wijanarti
112006062
Abstract
This study aims to find out what parents roles to encourage their children to read and
because of their education, economic backgrounds, parents’ perceptions, parents behavior,
and reading habit influence their participation in their children reading activity. The
participants of this study were one hundred and twenty seven parents from a State Elementary
school in Jepara. There were seventeen question of questionnaire. They were asked to fill in
17 questionnaire items related to their backgrounds, their beliefs about reading, their
behaviors, and the availability of books in their area. Through descriptive analysis, it is
signified that parents from any backgrounds perceived that they need to help their children to
read. However, parents from low education level and low socio-economic status seemed to be
less involved in motivating their children to read books. The findings implied that parents
from different backgrounds have different contribution in introducing reading to their
children and parent from early grade were more involved in enhancing their children’s
reading activity than parents from older grade.
Key words: Parents; Children’s Literacy, Reading Book, Elementary school
Introduction
Reading is the key to be success in school because most of the information is written
but not all students have the ability to read effectively (Stefanus, 2009). The Indonesian
children’s reading ability, especially elementary students still cause apprehension. According
to Stefanus (2009), in 1982 there was 15-20% students of Elementary school were found out
to be lack of reading ability. Next, in 1993, there was an increase for about 31, 69% of
students who found difficulties in reading. Then, in 1997 showed there was 68.8 % students in
the first grade to sixth grade in Elementary school in West Java, Lampung, West Kalimantan,
1
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
and East Java students who found difficulties in reading (Stefanus, 2009). Actually, to
increase the Indonesians’ reading interest, Indonesian government as well as non government
organization makes a way such as providing mobile library. There has been many labors but it
has not shown satisfying results yet. Children in Elementary school do not have the needs to
read. This causes children do not have reading ability. Perhaps, the children’s attitudes
towards reading are also caused by the lack of exposure to literature (Deford, 2009). In fact
reading ability will be very important in their study. Therefore, children’ interest in reading,
students’ imitated reading habit can bring good effect in the elementary school. In fact,
research suggests that read for young children is the single important intervention for
developing their future literacy skill (Frank & Leah 2006). Besides that Femi (2009) said that
when parents are very interested in reading book, it can give effect to their children to love
reading because children imitate parents’ habit and love to read. Therefore, children who love
in reading, they have literacy skill which can help them to improve vocabulary,
comprehension, writing skill, gain more knowledge and increase reading speech (Beatrice &
Linda 2004). Furthermore, daily family routines like reading books are central of all aspect to
children development, yet little is known about relationship between the family matters and
children’s literacy development (David & Suzan, 2011). Daily family routines like reading is
rarely happen because of the expensive book price, the parents do not give priority to the
books which are not required by school so that they do not have lots of books at home
(Karyono, 2007). Therefore, the writer desires to observe what the parents might do to
motivate their children to read.
Factor in the village can impact parents who have low sosial-economy because of
less salary, difficult and far to get books store, and also culture. Then, the researcher focus
2
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
on finding parents’ roles of children’s reading and what they do at home to encourage their
children to read because there are some children not motivated well in Elementary school.
Besides, whether the parent’s participation in their children’s reading activity is influenced
by their education and economic backgrounds will also be discussed. Knowing parents
backgrounds may help parents to predict the problems that prevent them to involve
themselves in motivating their children to read and understanding the kinds of activities that
they do to promote reading to their children.
Furthermore, in this globalization era we have to compete not only with fellow
developing countries but also with developed countries. If we do not pay attention to the
Indonesian lack of reading motivation, in the global competitions we will always left behind.
We will not be able to overcome political, social, culture and economic problems if we do
not have competitive human resource as the result of unwillingness to read and low reading
competency (Supriadi, 2007). Nonetheless, reading motivation is something that does not
come in an instant. Children’s reading motivation was strongly influenced by their
environment so since their early age parents have to boost their reading habit. Consequently,
the parents’ participations or involvements in introducing books to children and shaping
their reading habit are needed. Nevertheless, not all parents realize the importance of reading
and not all of them are able to provide reading books due to their low income. Reading
problem should be viewed as a serious problem and must find a solution, because of this
problem is closely related to the future of the nation and the State of individual human
maybe able to survive without live accustom themselves to read without reading culture. But
a democracy will develop especially survive which its citizens are readers, is individuals
who need to read not just a fun and love to talk ( Joesof, 2004).
3
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
The writer did a research on parents in the Elementary school with the research
question, What are the parents’ roles in enhancing the Elementary school’s reading
motivation?. This study is aimed to find out the roles of parents in motivating and enhancing
their children’s reading in Elementary school. Then, the writer wants to know the students’
problems that occur in reading fluency. Therefore, the result of this study is the answer of
the question. Through the result of the study, it was expected that it can give benefit for the
parents to know the necessary information about the roles of parents in enhancing children’s
reading motivation, especially in Elementary School. This study can also help parents in
encourage their children to read more. The most important is it helps parents to provide more
interesting storybooks and activities which suit children interests and need, so that children
will enjoy the reading activity and they have reading fluency.
Statement of the Problem
The researcher think that children reading ability is the teacher’s duty. The teachers
are the responsible ones to make the children able to read well. So, some children fail to
move up on the next level class because the children cannot read well. Parents’ role is
important to motive children reading. Actually, the basis of children’s education is in their
family. Foster children’s reading are when they are at home and family literacy are
developing for all family to gain children’s reading skill (Anne & Kathryn, 2010). Reading
is a keystone for the success of a child in school and definitely in the whole life time because
without the ability to read well, it is most likely that the opportunity for individual
accomplishment will be less. Moreover, it is important for children to posses reading skill
since almost all jobs involve reading so they may find difficulties if they do not have good
reading ability.
4
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
Theoretical Framework
Reading Habit in Indonesia
According to Darmaningtyas (2004), society assume that book price in Indonesia is
expensive. Because of book price is very expensive, it can give effect of the environmental in
Indonesian that people rare to read books, but 50% of the children like to spend their free time
to watch television every night. In addition, every people house has television (M. Mustafa,
2005). Furthermore, Indonesian people have not reading culture (Stefanus, 2009). Actually, it
is in line with Department of Educational (1997) as quoted by Martiningsih (2008), some
records of the results of condition mapping of the public interest in reading conducted by the
Ministry of National Education with Indonesia National Library in 1997 are 1) an interest in
reading the people of Indonesia are relatively low compared with some countries in ASEAN
and 2) the cultural dominance of speech as one of the factors causing the low reading habits of
the people of Indonesia. Cultural factor can also influence reading habit. Literacy
development is a cultural process related to different practices and preferences between social
classes (Myrberg & Rosén, 2009). So, reading motivation in Elementary students especially in
Indonesia is still worrying.
5
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
Parent’s Roles Their Children’s Reading Activity
The evidence about the benefits of parents being involved in their children’s literacy
activities in particular is overwhelming. Research shows that parental involvement in their
children’s learning positively affects the child’s performance at school (Fan & Chen, 2001).
McCarthey (2000) explained how family especially parents involvement in education is
influenced by culture, income, language, and the adults' perceptions of school and family
responsibilities. So, children’s reading motivation begins from home (Baker, 2003; Zhou &
Salili, 2008; Imperato, 2009; Myrberg & Rosén, 2009).
Children should be encouraged to use oral language to express themselves while
learning about print and books both at home and in school (Bernhardt, 2000). At home parents
can catalyze their children’s reading habit by showing enthusiasm, asking them anything
related to the book, and providing more books. Two effective techniques parents can do to
encourage children to read are reading aloud to them and letting them see their parents read
(Deford, 2009). Moreover, the effective quality of shared book reading is associated with
subsequent voluntary reading. Also Baker, Mackler, Sonnenschein, and Serpell (2001)
examined how parent interacts with their first grade children during storybook reading. If their
parents love reading and if possible, have home library, their children will imitate their habit
and be fond of reading. It is expected that by seeing their parents reading and easily found
books in their home usually they will be eager to read. Baker (2003) states that “children who
have more opportunities to engage in literacy-relevant activities at home have more positive
views about reading, engage in more leisure reading, and have higher achievement.”
Research also shows that the earlier parents become involved in their children’s
literacy practices, the more profound the results and the longer lasting the effects are (Mullis,
6
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
Mullis, Cornille et al., 2004). Additionally, of all school subjects, reading has been found to
be most sensitive to parental influence (Senechal & LeFevre, 2002). In turn,s success in
reading is a gateway to success in other academic areas as well (Jordan, Snow & Porsche,
2000).
Parent’s Background Related to Their Literacy Behaviors
Parents’ background can give effect to children literacy ( David & Susan , 2006), in
a national survey of over 300 centers that they found on overage less than one to books
available per child of those books, the majority were of average a poor quality of books.
Further, print resources tend to be scarce in poor communities our analysis of four
neighborhoods (David and Susan, 2006). Parental involvement in their child’s literacy gives
effect for family background variables, such as social class, family size and level of parental
education (Flouri & Buchanan, 2004), while reading enjoyment is more important for
children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status (OECD, 2002).
Parents’ education level and socio-economic status are two demographic factors that possibly
will play a role in parents’ literacy beliefs (Lynch et al., 2006).
Therefore, there is a high possibility that their children will love books if their
parents involve in their children reading activities. On the other hand, low social class parents
were less involved or may avoid direct involvement in their children’s education (Drummond
& Stipek, 2004). They often give priority to increase their income and are often pressured by
their economic and social problems such as providing clothing, emotional support, and
socializing manners (Drummond & Stipek, 2004). This condition prevents them for involving
themselves in their children’s reading and learning activity so that reading motivation of
children from this family are relatively low (Stefanus, 2009).
7
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
THE STUDY
Context of the study
This research used a descriptive method, especially, survey method with a
questionnaire as the instrument in collecting the data. Context of the study was undertaken in
SD Negeri IV Kembang which located in Kaliaman village in Jepara, Central Java Indonesia.
Particularly, parents are from one of Elementary school. The school is chosen because access
to high-quality reading books without spending much money is quite difficult since public
libraries with many books collection are hardly found there.
Participants
The participants of the study were 127 parents SD Negeri Kaliaman 4 in Kaliaman
village, Jepara. There are 25 parents of the second grade, 35 parents of third grade, 32 parents
of the fourth grade, and 35 parents of the fifth grade. The researcher did the reseach from
second to fifth grade in once school because students from all grades can read fluently and
researcher wants to focus in one school only. Besides that, It can help the researcher to get the
data easily and doesn’t spend much time to get data from the parents.
Instruments of data collection
The data collected are related to parents’ backgrounds, parents’ beliefs, parents’
behaviors, and availability of reading books for their children. For collecting the data for this
study, the researcher adapted and combined questionnaires from previous researches
conducted by Lynch et al. (2006), Zhou Salili (2008) , Resti (2011), Dewi (2004) and Kathryn
8
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
V. Drummond (2004) with some modifications. To make it easier for the participants and to
avoid misunderstanding, the questionnaire is written in Bahasa Indonesia.
Data Analysis
The respondents were asked to fill in information regarding their job (optional),
highest education, & their income per month. The questionnaire had 17 questions about the
roles of parents in enhancing children’s reading motivation: 6 questions for the roles of
parents (number 5,6,7,8,11 and 17), 5 questions for parents behavior to encourage their
children reading (number 9, 10, 12,13 and 14) , 3 questions for reading habit or activity
(number 1,2,and 3 ), 3 statements parents’ perceptions (number 4, 15 and 16). The parent’s
responses on part were divided into two categories: “positive” if they agree, strongly agree,
strongly can, can, very often, often and etc, and “negative” if they disagree/strongly disagree,
unneeded, seldom, and never. And also Yes and No answer if participant answer Yes they
should give the result. So, the responses were switched into percentages to indicate major
responds that answer the research objectives. They should give their answer by choosing one
of the options provided for each question. Parents are also asked to write down what parents’
role to help their children reading ability. Microsoft Office Excel was used to count the
average and most frequent answers.
Procedures
The writer went to SD N 4 Kembang in Kaliaman, Jepara .Next, the writer met with
the headmaster of this school to ask for permission to distribute the quesionnaires to parents.
The headmaster gave permission and the teachers were asked to help distribute the
questionnaire to the parents. Parents filled the questionnaires at school during the time the
parents gathered at school to pick up the children’s report cards. After the questionnaire had
9
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
been submitted, 3 days later the researcher took back questionnaire to the teacher. There were
135 questionnaires given to parents but only 127 of them who returned it.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This section discusses about parents’ background, parents’ perception toward the reading
books, and parents behavior to encourage their children’s reading.
A. Parents’ Background
This part converses about parents’ education level that was separated into two groups;
they are parents with tertiary education and parents without tertiary education.
Percentages
Figure 1. Parents’ Educational Level
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
84%
with tertiary educaton
27%
17%
3%
20%
2%
20%
10%
16%
without tertiary education
1%
Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5
Total
Grade
The result showed that 84 % parents of the second to fifth graders are in the category
without tertiary education. They worked as farmers, carpenters, fishermen, merchants,
housewives and bricklayers. Six ten percent (16%) of the total number of parents had tertiary
education and they worked as entrepreneurs and civil servants. Based on the data above, it
showed that the number of parents with tertiary education was less than parents without tertiary
education.
10
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
Figure. 2 Parents’ income per-month
70%
63%
percentages
60%
50%
40%
> 1,6 million
30%
16%
20%
10%
2%
8%
9%
4% 4%4%
0%
Grade 2
Grade 3
20%
18%
2% 4%
1%
5% 3%
Grade 4
Grade 5
800-1,6 million
19%
11%
7%
800 thousand
A Study in Kaliaman IV Elementary School Jepara
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Novita Wijanarti
112006062
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading Motivation :
A Study in Kaliaman IV Elementary School Jepara
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Novita Wijanarti
112006062
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013
ii
iii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or
accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my
knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other
person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2013. Novita Wijanarti and Victoria Usadya P. M.A., ELT
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the
permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of
Language and Literature, Satya Wacana University, Salatiga.
Novita Wijanarti:
iv
PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION
As a member of the (SWCU) Satya Wacana Christian University academic community, I
verify that:
Name
Student ID Number
Study Program
Faculty
Kind of Work
:
:
:
:
:
Novita Wijanarti
112006062
English
Language and literature
Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide SWCU with a non-exclusive royalty free right
for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Children’s Reading Motivation :
A Study in Kaliaman IV Elementary School Jepara
along with any pertinent equipment.
With this non-exclusive royalty free right, SWCU maintains the right to copy, reproduce, print,
publish, post, display, incorporate, store in or scan into a retrieval system or database, transmit,
broadcast, barter or sell my intellectual property, in whole or in part without my express written
permission, as long as my name is still included as the writer.
This declaration is made according to the best of my knowledge.
Made in
Date
: Salatiga
: February 8th, 2013
Verified by signee,
Novita Wijanarti
Approved by
Thesis Supervisor
Thesis Examiner
Victoria U. Palupi, M.A., ELT
Anne Indrayanti Timotius, M.Ed
v
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading Motivation:
A Study in Kaliaman IV Elementary School Jepara
Novita Wijanarti
112006062
Abstract
This study aims to find out what parents roles to encourage their children to read and
because of their education, economic backgrounds, parents’ perceptions, parents behavior,
and reading habit influence their participation in their children reading activity. The
participants of this study were one hundred and twenty seven parents from a State Elementary
school in Jepara. There were seventeen question of questionnaire. They were asked to fill in
17 questionnaire items related to their backgrounds, their beliefs about reading, their
behaviors, and the availability of books in their area. Through descriptive analysis, it is
signified that parents from any backgrounds perceived that they need to help their children to
read. However, parents from low education level and low socio-economic status seemed to be
less involved in motivating their children to read books. The findings implied that parents
from different backgrounds have different contribution in introducing reading to their
children and parent from early grade were more involved in enhancing their children’s
reading activity than parents from older grade.
Key words: Parents; Children’s Literacy, Reading Book, Elementary school
Introduction
Reading is the key to be success in school because most of the information is written
but not all students have the ability to read effectively (Stefanus, 2009). The Indonesian
children’s reading ability, especially elementary students still cause apprehension. According
to Stefanus (2009), in 1982 there was 15-20% students of Elementary school were found out
to be lack of reading ability. Next, in 1993, there was an increase for about 31, 69% of
students who found difficulties in reading. Then, in 1997 showed there was 68.8 % students in
the first grade to sixth grade in Elementary school in West Java, Lampung, West Kalimantan,
1
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
and East Java students who found difficulties in reading (Stefanus, 2009). Actually, to
increase the Indonesians’ reading interest, Indonesian government as well as non government
organization makes a way such as providing mobile library. There has been many labors but it
has not shown satisfying results yet. Children in Elementary school do not have the needs to
read. This causes children do not have reading ability. Perhaps, the children’s attitudes
towards reading are also caused by the lack of exposure to literature (Deford, 2009). In fact
reading ability will be very important in their study. Therefore, children’ interest in reading,
students’ imitated reading habit can bring good effect in the elementary school. In fact,
research suggests that read for young children is the single important intervention for
developing their future literacy skill (Frank & Leah 2006). Besides that Femi (2009) said that
when parents are very interested in reading book, it can give effect to their children to love
reading because children imitate parents’ habit and love to read. Therefore, children who love
in reading, they have literacy skill which can help them to improve vocabulary,
comprehension, writing skill, gain more knowledge and increase reading speech (Beatrice &
Linda 2004). Furthermore, daily family routines like reading books are central of all aspect to
children development, yet little is known about relationship between the family matters and
children’s literacy development (David & Suzan, 2011). Daily family routines like reading is
rarely happen because of the expensive book price, the parents do not give priority to the
books which are not required by school so that they do not have lots of books at home
(Karyono, 2007). Therefore, the writer desires to observe what the parents might do to
motivate their children to read.
Factor in the village can impact parents who have low sosial-economy because of
less salary, difficult and far to get books store, and also culture. Then, the researcher focus
2
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
on finding parents’ roles of children’s reading and what they do at home to encourage their
children to read because there are some children not motivated well in Elementary school.
Besides, whether the parent’s participation in their children’s reading activity is influenced
by their education and economic backgrounds will also be discussed. Knowing parents
backgrounds may help parents to predict the problems that prevent them to involve
themselves in motivating their children to read and understanding the kinds of activities that
they do to promote reading to their children.
Furthermore, in this globalization era we have to compete not only with fellow
developing countries but also with developed countries. If we do not pay attention to the
Indonesian lack of reading motivation, in the global competitions we will always left behind.
We will not be able to overcome political, social, culture and economic problems if we do
not have competitive human resource as the result of unwillingness to read and low reading
competency (Supriadi, 2007). Nonetheless, reading motivation is something that does not
come in an instant. Children’s reading motivation was strongly influenced by their
environment so since their early age parents have to boost their reading habit. Consequently,
the parents’ participations or involvements in introducing books to children and shaping
their reading habit are needed. Nevertheless, not all parents realize the importance of reading
and not all of them are able to provide reading books due to their low income. Reading
problem should be viewed as a serious problem and must find a solution, because of this
problem is closely related to the future of the nation and the State of individual human
maybe able to survive without live accustom themselves to read without reading culture. But
a democracy will develop especially survive which its citizens are readers, is individuals
who need to read not just a fun and love to talk ( Joesof, 2004).
3
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
The writer did a research on parents in the Elementary school with the research
question, What are the parents’ roles in enhancing the Elementary school’s reading
motivation?. This study is aimed to find out the roles of parents in motivating and enhancing
their children’s reading in Elementary school. Then, the writer wants to know the students’
problems that occur in reading fluency. Therefore, the result of this study is the answer of
the question. Through the result of the study, it was expected that it can give benefit for the
parents to know the necessary information about the roles of parents in enhancing children’s
reading motivation, especially in Elementary School. This study can also help parents in
encourage their children to read more. The most important is it helps parents to provide more
interesting storybooks and activities which suit children interests and need, so that children
will enjoy the reading activity and they have reading fluency.
Statement of the Problem
The researcher think that children reading ability is the teacher’s duty. The teachers
are the responsible ones to make the children able to read well. So, some children fail to
move up on the next level class because the children cannot read well. Parents’ role is
important to motive children reading. Actually, the basis of children’s education is in their
family. Foster children’s reading are when they are at home and family literacy are
developing for all family to gain children’s reading skill (Anne & Kathryn, 2010). Reading
is a keystone for the success of a child in school and definitely in the whole life time because
without the ability to read well, it is most likely that the opportunity for individual
accomplishment will be less. Moreover, it is important for children to posses reading skill
since almost all jobs involve reading so they may find difficulties if they do not have good
reading ability.
4
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
Theoretical Framework
Reading Habit in Indonesia
According to Darmaningtyas (2004), society assume that book price in Indonesia is
expensive. Because of book price is very expensive, it can give effect of the environmental in
Indonesian that people rare to read books, but 50% of the children like to spend their free time
to watch television every night. In addition, every people house has television (M. Mustafa,
2005). Furthermore, Indonesian people have not reading culture (Stefanus, 2009). Actually, it
is in line with Department of Educational (1997) as quoted by Martiningsih (2008), some
records of the results of condition mapping of the public interest in reading conducted by the
Ministry of National Education with Indonesia National Library in 1997 are 1) an interest in
reading the people of Indonesia are relatively low compared with some countries in ASEAN
and 2) the cultural dominance of speech as one of the factors causing the low reading habits of
the people of Indonesia. Cultural factor can also influence reading habit. Literacy
development is a cultural process related to different practices and preferences between social
classes (Myrberg & Rosén, 2009). So, reading motivation in Elementary students especially in
Indonesia is still worrying.
5
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
Parent’s Roles Their Children’s Reading Activity
The evidence about the benefits of parents being involved in their children’s literacy
activities in particular is overwhelming. Research shows that parental involvement in their
children’s learning positively affects the child’s performance at school (Fan & Chen, 2001).
McCarthey (2000) explained how family especially parents involvement in education is
influenced by culture, income, language, and the adults' perceptions of school and family
responsibilities. So, children’s reading motivation begins from home (Baker, 2003; Zhou &
Salili, 2008; Imperato, 2009; Myrberg & Rosén, 2009).
Children should be encouraged to use oral language to express themselves while
learning about print and books both at home and in school (Bernhardt, 2000). At home parents
can catalyze their children’s reading habit by showing enthusiasm, asking them anything
related to the book, and providing more books. Two effective techniques parents can do to
encourage children to read are reading aloud to them and letting them see their parents read
(Deford, 2009). Moreover, the effective quality of shared book reading is associated with
subsequent voluntary reading. Also Baker, Mackler, Sonnenschein, and Serpell (2001)
examined how parent interacts with their first grade children during storybook reading. If their
parents love reading and if possible, have home library, their children will imitate their habit
and be fond of reading. It is expected that by seeing their parents reading and easily found
books in their home usually they will be eager to read. Baker (2003) states that “children who
have more opportunities to engage in literacy-relevant activities at home have more positive
views about reading, engage in more leisure reading, and have higher achievement.”
Research also shows that the earlier parents become involved in their children’s
literacy practices, the more profound the results and the longer lasting the effects are (Mullis,
6
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
Mullis, Cornille et al., 2004). Additionally, of all school subjects, reading has been found to
be most sensitive to parental influence (Senechal & LeFevre, 2002). In turn,s success in
reading is a gateway to success in other academic areas as well (Jordan, Snow & Porsche,
2000).
Parent’s Background Related to Their Literacy Behaviors
Parents’ background can give effect to children literacy ( David & Susan , 2006), in
a national survey of over 300 centers that they found on overage less than one to books
available per child of those books, the majority were of average a poor quality of books.
Further, print resources tend to be scarce in poor communities our analysis of four
neighborhoods (David and Susan, 2006). Parental involvement in their child’s literacy gives
effect for family background variables, such as social class, family size and level of parental
education (Flouri & Buchanan, 2004), while reading enjoyment is more important for
children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status (OECD, 2002).
Parents’ education level and socio-economic status are two demographic factors that possibly
will play a role in parents’ literacy beliefs (Lynch et al., 2006).
Therefore, there is a high possibility that their children will love books if their
parents involve in their children reading activities. On the other hand, low social class parents
were less involved or may avoid direct involvement in their children’s education (Drummond
& Stipek, 2004). They often give priority to increase their income and are often pressured by
their economic and social problems such as providing clothing, emotional support, and
socializing manners (Drummond & Stipek, 2004). This condition prevents them for involving
themselves in their children’s reading and learning activity so that reading motivation of
children from this family are relatively low (Stefanus, 2009).
7
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
THE STUDY
Context of the study
This research used a descriptive method, especially, survey method with a
questionnaire as the instrument in collecting the data. Context of the study was undertaken in
SD Negeri IV Kembang which located in Kaliaman village in Jepara, Central Java Indonesia.
Particularly, parents are from one of Elementary school. The school is chosen because access
to high-quality reading books without spending much money is quite difficult since public
libraries with many books collection are hardly found there.
Participants
The participants of the study were 127 parents SD Negeri Kaliaman 4 in Kaliaman
village, Jepara. There are 25 parents of the second grade, 35 parents of third grade, 32 parents
of the fourth grade, and 35 parents of the fifth grade. The researcher did the reseach from
second to fifth grade in once school because students from all grades can read fluently and
researcher wants to focus in one school only. Besides that, It can help the researcher to get the
data easily and doesn’t spend much time to get data from the parents.
Instruments of data collection
The data collected are related to parents’ backgrounds, parents’ beliefs, parents’
behaviors, and availability of reading books for their children. For collecting the data for this
study, the researcher adapted and combined questionnaires from previous researches
conducted by Lynch et al. (2006), Zhou Salili (2008) , Resti (2011), Dewi (2004) and Kathryn
8
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
V. Drummond (2004) with some modifications. To make it easier for the participants and to
avoid misunderstanding, the questionnaire is written in Bahasa Indonesia.
Data Analysis
The respondents were asked to fill in information regarding their job (optional),
highest education, & their income per month. The questionnaire had 17 questions about the
roles of parents in enhancing children’s reading motivation: 6 questions for the roles of
parents (number 5,6,7,8,11 and 17), 5 questions for parents behavior to encourage their
children reading (number 9, 10, 12,13 and 14) , 3 questions for reading habit or activity
(number 1,2,and 3 ), 3 statements parents’ perceptions (number 4, 15 and 16). The parent’s
responses on part were divided into two categories: “positive” if they agree, strongly agree,
strongly can, can, very often, often and etc, and “negative” if they disagree/strongly disagree,
unneeded, seldom, and never. And also Yes and No answer if participant answer Yes they
should give the result. So, the responses were switched into percentages to indicate major
responds that answer the research objectives. They should give their answer by choosing one
of the options provided for each question. Parents are also asked to write down what parents’
role to help their children reading ability. Microsoft Office Excel was used to count the
average and most frequent answers.
Procedures
The writer went to SD N 4 Kembang in Kaliaman, Jepara .Next, the writer met with
the headmaster of this school to ask for permission to distribute the quesionnaires to parents.
The headmaster gave permission and the teachers were asked to help distribute the
questionnaire to the parents. Parents filled the questionnaires at school during the time the
parents gathered at school to pick up the children’s report cards. After the questionnaire had
9
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
been submitted, 3 days later the researcher took back questionnaire to the teacher. There were
135 questionnaires given to parents but only 127 of them who returned it.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This section discusses about parents’ background, parents’ perception toward the reading
books, and parents behavior to encourage their children’s reading.
A. Parents’ Background
This part converses about parents’ education level that was separated into two groups;
they are parents with tertiary education and parents without tertiary education.
Percentages
Figure 1. Parents’ Educational Level
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
84%
with tertiary educaton
27%
17%
3%
20%
2%
20%
10%
16%
without tertiary education
1%
Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5
Total
Grade
The result showed that 84 % parents of the second to fifth graders are in the category
without tertiary education. They worked as farmers, carpenters, fishermen, merchants,
housewives and bricklayers. Six ten percent (16%) of the total number of parents had tertiary
education and they worked as entrepreneurs and civil servants. Based on the data above, it
showed that the number of parents with tertiary education was less than parents without tertiary
education.
10
The Roles of Parents in Enhancing Student’s Reading…..
Figure. 2 Parents’ income per-month
70%
63%
percentages
60%
50%
40%
> 1,6 million
30%
16%
20%
10%
2%
8%
9%
4% 4%4%
0%
Grade 2
Grade 3
20%
18%
2% 4%
1%
5% 3%
Grade 4
Grade 5
800-1,6 million
19%
11%
7%
800 thousand