Family factors and critical reading: insights from Finland’s 2025 Parent Barometer Survey

Abstract Background Reading remains essential in today's world, but digital ecosystems have made reading demands in context of public health more complex. Proficient readers must interpret and communicate through online (health) texts and also evaluate them. Family homes uniquely support reading development through early sustained exposure with parents being core early agents of their children's health education and development. This presentation aims to describe and discuss the prevalence and correlates of family factors contributing to adolescents’ critical reading development. Methods Data from the online Parent Barometer Survey (N > 11,000) was collected between 10/2024-01/2025. The survey included the Home Literacy Environment on Critical Reading scale with 14 parent-rated statements, e.g., “In our family, the child is encouraged to search for information from a range of sources.” Responses ranged from 1 = Not at all to 6 = Completely. Background variables included gender, education, home language, and child's age. Prevalence, factor analysis, and regression were used. Results Findings show that a big proportion of parents report different practices that support critical reading skill development takes place in their families: e.g., encouragement of a child to search for information from different sources (80%) and compare such information (65%). However, a smaller yet notable proportion report views that may hinder diverse perspectives (17%) or beliefs that may hinder critical thinking (11%). Associated factors and their correlates will be presented thoroughly. Conclusions Although many families have practices, values, attitudes, and other factors that support the development of children's critical reading skills, this is not the case for a significant number of families. For public health policy and intervention, it is important to consider how families can be supported in fostering children's critical reading in order to ensure equal learning opportunities.