April is School Library Month, and the College of Social Work would like to take this time to recognize two of its faculty members who have conducted research on the powerful potential of father-child shared book reading in preventing school and community violence.
According to Drs. Joyce Y. Lee and Susan Yoon, father involvement is positively linked with children’s school engagement. When fathers are involved in their lives, children are likely to have higher levels of academic achievement and lower levels of behavioral problems (including delinquency and truancy) at school. Moreover, children with actively involved fathers have higher self-esteem and better peer relationships compared to their counterparts.
Although fathers are involved in their children’s lives in multiple ways, one form of father involvement has repeatedly been shown to be beneficial for children across different developmental domains: cognitive stimulation. Lee’s and Yoon’s study shows that fathers’ cognitive stimulation in the form of telling stories and reading books is linked with better behavioral, socioemotional and academic outcomes for children, especially for those from socioeconomically disadvantaged.
Additional research is needed to better understand the precise mechanism by which fathers’ cognitive stimulation is beneficial for children’s academic and behavioral outcomes within the school context. That said, prior evidence suggests that fathers may generate a love of learning and a positive attitude toward school through engaging in cognitively stimulating activities such as reading with their children and having conversations around books. Moreover, through shared book reading early on in childhood, fathers have the potential to help their children develop critical thinking skills and abilities to use their voices for advocacy as school-age children and adolescents. This may, in turn, support children and adolescents to push back against peer pressures involved in school violence, including bullying and cyberbullying.
To help lay this critical foundation in early childhood, Lee and Yoon have partnered with Action for Children, a community-based agency serving fathers and families in Columbus, to develop and launch a pilot father-child shared book reading program called Daddy READs with Me (DREAM). DREAM leverages video chat technology, combined with a digital library and peer mentoring, to teach Black non-resident fathers from Columbus to gain evidence-informed book-sharing skills and employ them with their young children across a span of two months.
The DREAM program has been successfully pilot-tested with six Black non-resident fathers with low-income, demonstrating its feasibility. Preliminary qualitative data suggests fathers’ positive assessment of the DREAM program, with its benefits for increasing their children’s verbal and literacy skills, allowing more quality time for father-child bonding, and improving their positive parenting skills.
To learn more about the DREAM project, visit: https://www.cfwlaboratory.com/dream-project.html.
