Parental factors related to children’s reading: Evidence from comparing transnational marriage families and local families

The purpose of this study was to determine the parental factors related to children’s reading by comparing two types of families, transnational marriage families in which the mother was not born in Taiwan and local families. Data for this study came from the PIRLS 2006. There were 273 children from transnational marriage families. Children’s gender, mother’s education level and well-off condition of families were all identical. The study selected 273 children from local families who were the classmates of the children from transnational marriage families. To control the economic effect, this study further selected the “average” well-off condition of families. A total of 179 children (102 girls and 87 boys) from transnational marriage families and 214 children (112 girls and 92 goys) from local families were analyzed by using The Learning to Read Survey. Results revealed that children of transnational marriage families did not have good reading achievement when comparing to children from local families. However, the efforts of parents from two types of families on children’s reading were not different. Nevertheless, mother’s education plays an essential role on children’s reading. This phenomenon is discussed in the paper.