The paper presents the importance of family literacy and how it affects speech development and learning in preschool children. The paper is comprised of a theoretical and an empirical part. The theoretical part defines speech development in preschool children, which is divided into prespeech and speech period. This is followed by the description of factors affecting speech development (quality of family environment, family's sociodemographic characteristics, children's gender, kindergarten and genetic factors). I stated the importance of literacy and different types of literacy as well as described the types of literacy that are present in the preschool period. Moreover, I portrayed family literacy, the importance of reading to children, quality books and reading a quality book or a picture book; I also drafted some guidelines for successful reading and explained how pedagogical workers can affect family literacy. More guidelines for encouraging speech development in children are presented, along with the role of adults (parents or guardians) and the importance of parents and children reading together. I also portrayed motivation and the interest for reading with children, encouraging children to tell a story, the role of books without text, children’s symbolic game, which greatly impacts speech development, and other activities that are performed outside the family circle, such as going to the library or theatre.
By conducting an anonymous online survey for the empirical part, I conducted a research on the importance of family literacy for speech development and learning in preschool children. They survey consisted of 6 general questions and 16 questions on the topic that was the subject of my research. 137 interviewees responded to the survey in 7 days. The results were analysed with the help of graphs, tables and a description, accompanied by academic literature. I was mainly interested in when parents started reading to their children, how often they do it, when it is reading time, how they choose a book and what books they choose, whether they discuss the read book, whether they perform any activity after reading the book, how often they go to the library or theatre, how many children books they keep at home, how often they include their children in common everyday activities, such as writing invitations, greetings cards or shopping lists, whether they take their children to go shopping, whether they talk about inscriptions around themselves, in shops or in traffic, and how the kindergarten encourages family literacy or reading at home. I obtained different results. To summarise, parents should receive more information on the importance of reading and spending quality time together.
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