Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311

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Children and Youth Services Review

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth

Impacts of parents and reading promotion on creating a reading culture:

Evidence from a developing context
Quan-Hoang Vuong a, Viet-Phuong La a, Thanh-Huyen T. Nguyen a, Minh-Hoang Nguyen a,
Thu-Trang Vuong b, Ha-My Vuong c, Manh-Toan Ho a, *
a
Centre for Interdisciplinary Social Research, Phenikaa University, Ha Noi, Viet Nam
b
Sciences Po Paris, 27 Rue Saint-Guillaume, 75007 Paris, France
c
Sorbonne Université, No. 1, rue Victor Cousin, 75005 Paris, France

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Although the government has made an effort to encourage reading, a Vietnamese person only reads four books
Reading culture per year on average. As low reading culture might hinder Vietnam’s pursuit of a knowledge-driven economy, this
Reading attitudes paper examines the relationship of students’ reading attitudes with gender, reading promotion activities, parents’
Parent-child relationship
involvement. A dataset of 4966 secondary students in Northern Vietnam was used. The Bayesian method was
Vietnam
employed to analyze the relationship between students’ reading attitudes and the following factors: their gender,
Reading promotion
reading promotion activities, parents’ involvement. The findings suggest that female students show more interest
in reading than male students. Shared reading between parents and children positively correlates with students’
reading attitudes while buying books for children does not. All types of activities and services promoting reading
habits positively correlate with students’ attitudes towards reading activities. Among the four examined services
(storytelling contests, story-writing contest, book exhibition, and drawing book illustration), storytelling contest
shows a strong association with reading attitudes while drawing book illustration has the weakest impact on
reading attitudes.

1. Introduction
It is a consensus in reading research that reading has a social and
economic impact. People with better reading skills are more likely to be
successful at school (Duff, Tomblin, & Catts, 2015; Locher & Pfost, 2020;
McKeown & Curtis, 2014; Nyarko, Kugbey, Kofi, Cole, & Adentwi, 2018)
and at work (Anderson et al., 1988; Diehl & Mikulecky, 1980; Watson,
2016).
In return, the ability to read is a product of socioeconomic status and
reading environment. For example, in the digital age, children from 17
to 26 months old were found to acquire more new words when reading
with digital books than when reading with printed books (Strouse &
Ganea, 2017). However, other studies on the impact of children’s
exposure to digital devices on reading skills obtained mixed results
(Gremmen, Molenaar, & Teepe, 2016; Lauricella, Barr, & Calvert, 2014;
Munzer, Miller, Weeks, Kaciroti, & Radesky, 2019). Reading online
might be more interesting than print, but readers lose focus much more
easily when reading online (Baron, 2017).
When reading and socioeconomic status affects each other, more
than 250 million children cannot read across the world. Illiteracy is still
a problem in some developing and less-developed countries (Patrinos,
Graham, & Kelly, 2017; Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2016b). International
organizations are trying to remove illiteracy, but improving reading
proficiency worldwide has met various difficulties. The out-of-school
rate decreased worldwide from 1998 to 2014, but education is still out
of reach for millions of children (Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2016a), leaving
many children not having the opportunity to learn to read. In addition,
many people in developing countries do not have books or textbooks to
read and learn (West & Ei, 2014). As such, the digital era is an opportune
time. Many people in developing countries such as India and Ethiopia
read and read to their children from mobile phones (West & Ei, 2014).
With a population of nearly 100 million and a developing economy,
the Vietnam government pays close attention to its human capital. The
government has encouraged people to read more but met many chal­
lenges in the digital age. According to unofficial statistics, on average, a
Vietnamese person spends nearly 7 h on the Internet, including 2.5 h for

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: toan.homanh@phenikaa-uni.edu.vn (M.-T. Ho).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.106311
Received 25 November 2020; Received in revised form 17 May 2021; Accepted 13 November 2021
Available online 16 November 2021
0190-7409/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Q.-H. Vuong et al. Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311

Table 1 social media, 2.5 for television and other streaming services, more than
Variable description. 1 h for music (DaNangOnline, 2020).
Variable Data Description Prior Meanwhile, a Vietnamese would read only four books per year,
type distribution including 2.8 textbooks (Mai, 2017). 26% of the Vietnamese population
Readbook Binary Whether a student like reading (Yes = normal(0,10) reports reading no book (Ha, 2019). Reading time remains low regard­
1; No = 0) less of public actions and increased book sources (online bookstores,
Sex Binary The gender of the respondent (Male = normal(0,10) book streets, e-books) in recent years (Hung, 2016). The low reading
1; Female = 2) culture among parents also makes children lose interest in reading
Buybook Binary Whether the respondent’s parents buy normal(0,10)
books for them (Yes = 1; No = 0)
(Nguyen, 2019).
Readstory Binary Whether the respondent’s parents read normal(0,10) This article used the Bayesian method to examine how gender, par­
books to them (Yes = 1; No = 0) ents’ involvement, and reading promotion activities affect middle
MostlikedAct Discrete If students liked participating in normal(0,10) schoolers’ reading attitudes in Vietnam. The analysis was done with a
reading promotion activities, they
dataset of Vietnamese secondary school students in Northern Vietnam. It
were asked to choose which of the
following activities they liked joining: consists of information about students’ attitudes towards reading,
Book exhibition, storytelling reading activities that parents do with them, and reading services they
competition, story-writing would like to join. With the unique situation of promoting reading in
competition, drawing book Vietnam, the article contributed to the reading literature by comparing
illustrations.
the effectiveness of reading promotion services in building reading
habits for children. The role of parents as reading pals and book pro­
viders to their children is also examined. The paper also takes advantage
of Bayesian analysis, which can help accommodate unobservable vari­
ables and update prior knowledge with data to examine the effects of the
factors of concern on reading habits. Employing Bayesian analysis helps
to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional frequentist approach,
such as abusing p-values (Vuong et al., 2020).

2. Literature review

This paper examines the determinants of children’s book reading

attitudes. However, even though book reading has long been advocated
as a source of knowing (van Woudenberg, 2021), it is not the only source
of knowledge or method of recording (Whittow, 2018). Other media
such as orality or illustration or other forms of reading such as digital
reading should also be considered. They are considerably important in
the days when information is everywhere, requiring learners to have an
open mindset to learn (Q. H. Vuong, 2015; Q. H. Vuong & Napier, 2015).
However, within the scope of this study, we will consider book reading
attitudes as a crucial process of acquiring knowledge for children.

2.1. Genders as a determinant of reading attitudes

Research into determinants of reading habits shows that under­

standing attitudes towards reading requires an interdisciplinary view
about gender and age. Demographic traits are usually correlated with
the reading behaviors and attitudes of children. Girls consistently show
more positive motivation and attitudes towards reading than boys
(Baker & Wigfield, 1999; Marinak & Gambrell, 2010; S. McGeown,
Goodwin, Henderson, & Wright, 2012; McKenna, Kear, & Ellsworth,
1995). Gender differences also shape reading choices (Coles & Hall,
2002; Hughes-Hassell & Rodge, 2007; S. P. McGeown, 2015). Other than
sex, age is also associated with reading habits and reading motivation.
Children’s reading motivation and attitudes seem to decrease as they
grow; thus, they spend less time reading (Lau, 2009; Lepper, Corpus, &
Iyengar, 2005). Previous studies suggest that children see less value in
reading over time (Eccles, Wigfield, Harold, & Blumenfeld, 1993). Be­
sides, the increasing amount of time for digital activities during
adolescence also decreases the time for reading prints (Twenge et al.,
2018).

2.2. Developing reading culture with reading promotion activities

Fig. 1. Model 1′ s logical network. Having a supportive environment is crucial to nurture and stimulate
reading habits among children. Schools and local communities are the
two important environments to develop positive attitudes towards
reading. Students could be more enthusiastic in reading at school if their
teachers are avid readers (Baker et al., 2000). Furthermore, peer cultures

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Fig. 2. The PSIS diagnostic plot of Model 1.
at school potentially motivate students to be engaged in reading
(Johnson & Johnson, 1999). Girls usually join in groups of female
schoolmates who are keen readers. Therefore, they are more likely to be
motivated to read more, which leads to better reading achievement
(Chiu, 2018).
The local community has an important role in developing a culture
for reading to nurture children’s reading habits and attitudes. To detach
reading from its image as boring schoolwork activities, researchers
recommended that communities need reading promotion activities to
encourage children to read (Cruz, 2003; Sanders-ten Holte, 1998). One
of the basic principles to create a successful reading promotion
campaign is to offer a wide range of literature that matches the readers’
taste and not make them think of reading books as a forceful or required
school activity (Baker et al., 2000). However, when literary taste and
reading attitudes depend on cultural and sociological factors (Akbari,
Ghonsooly, Ghazanfari, & Shahriari, 2017; Jamunaa, 1982), it is chal­
lenging to satisfy everyone. Hence, Doiron and Asselin (2011) intro­
duced various reading promotion activities worldwide, which had
different outcomes. For example, North American libraries have story­
telling sections for children and family scheduled (URL: https://vpl.
bibliocommons.com/events/search/q = storytelling). In an Uganda
community library, children are asked to draw a picture from stories told
by adults at home (Doiron & Asselin, 2011). However, the focus of
Doiron and Asselin’s paper is to introduce the principles to design
reading programs and has yet quantitatively evaluated the impact of
these activities on children’s reading habits.
2.3. Parents taking the role of reading pals to develop children’s reading
attitudes
The reading environment at home is another determinant of chil­
dren’s reading habits. How parents interact with children during
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Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311
reading time correlates with children’s attitudes towards reading. If they
show affection when reading with the child, the child is more likely to be
engaged in reading (Bergin, 2001). Rowe (1991) examined 5000 stu­
dents at the age of 5 to 14 and found that children are more likely to love
reading when they have a more pleasant reading experience at home.
This effect of home reading experience on reading attitudes sustains
regardless of children’s traits and backgrounds. Not just the quality of
parent involvement, how they develop reading habits is another critical
aspect. Though both reading books to children and buying books for
them is a good way to build up reading habits, the former was found to
exhibit much more power (Tran et al., 2019). This suggests that the more
engaged parents are in creating a reading culture in the family, the more
likely their children will like reading. However, as the rate of women
joining the labor force increases, children no longer receive as much
supervision and assistance from their parents to develop reading habits
as before (Decker, 1986).
Since culture influences our behaviors and worldviews (Q.-H. Vuong
et al., 2018), how parents foster children with positive reading attitudes
varies across cultures. How much parents get involved with children’s
reading activities varies with each culture and socioeconomic status
(Chiu, 2018; Jose, Huntsinger, Huntsinger, & Liaw, 2000). Regarding
cultural differences, whereas European moms prefer reading to the
child, letting them see parents reading, and having many books at home,
Chinese moms do not emphasize these activities even though they hold
the same opinion (Chao, 1996). Children’s reading habits are also
associated with their socioeconomic background. Compared to children
with better economic status, children who struggle with poverty tend to
have lower reading skills and slower reading development speed
(Dolean, Melby-Lervåg, Tincas, Damsa, & Lervåg, 2019). Parents with a
higher income are more capable of providing children with high-quality
materials. As a result, children with better backgrounds have more
exposure to a better reading environment and are more motivated to
Q.-H. Vuong et al. Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311

Fig. 3. Trace plots of the posterior coefficients.

Table 2
Model 1′ s simulated posterior coefficients.
Inference for Stan model: 8d5cce040928ba8cb5231ff035a8606d. 4 chains, each with iter = 5000; warmup = 2000; thin = 1; post-warmup draws per chain = 3000, total post-warmup
draws = 12000.

Mean se_mean sd 2.5% 25% 50% 75% 97.5% n_eff Rhat

Male 2.04 0.00 0.07 1.91 2.00 2.04 2.08 2.17 12,382 1
Female 3.08 0.00 0.10 2.89 3.01 3.08 3.15 3.29 11,311 1
Computed from 12,000 by 4726 log-likelihood matrix
Estimate SE
elpd_loo − 1269.3 44.6
p_loo 2.1 0.1
looic 2538.5 89.1

read books (Chiu & Khoo, 2005). 3. Method and materials:

2.4. Research questions: 3.1. Materials

Based on previous research studies, this study investigates students’
reading attitudes based on their relationship with students’ gender,
reading promotion activities, and parents’ involvement. Hence, the
research questions are as followed:
1. Do girls show more positive reading attitudes than boys?
2. How do different types of reading promotion activities affect stu­
dents’ reading attitudes?
3. Do different parents’ interventions have a different impact on stu­
dents’ reading attitudes and habits?
The dataset resulted from the survey “Studying reading habits and
preference of junior high school students in Vietnam” (Ho et al., 2020;
Q.-H. Vuong et al., 2019). The first phase, which collected 1676 re­
sponses, has already been presented and analyzed using the frequentist
approach in Le et al. (2019) and Tran et al. (2019). The whole dataset
contains information about reading preferences and reading habits of
4966 junior high school students from grades 6 to 9 in public schools in
Ninh Binh, Vietnam. This dataset is publicly accessible in (Vuong et al.,
2021).
To ensure that participating students’ conception of reading is
coherent, qualified personnel explained every notion in the

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Fig. 4. Gelman shrink factor plot.

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Fig. 5. Density plot of the posterior coefficients of Model 1.

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Fig. 6. Interval plot of the posterior coefficients of Model 1.

Fig. 7. Model 2′ s logical network.

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Fig. 8. The PSIS diagnostic plot of Model 2.

Fig. 9. Trace plots of the MCMC chains of the posterior coefficients (Model 2).

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Table 3
The results of Bayesian regression between types of parents’ involvement and students’ interest in reading.
Inference for Stan model: 6ef998f14a97a9b9111ba0264eff1fbb. 4 chains, each with iter = 5000; warmup = 2000; thin = 1; post-warmup draws per chain = 3000, total post-warmup
draws = 12000.

Mean se_mean sd 2.5% 25% 50% 75% 97.5% n_eff Rhat

b_Buybook − 0.31 0.00 0.22 − 0.73 − 0.46 − 0.31 − 0.16 0.15 4604 1
b_Readstory 0.16 0.00 0.18 − 0.20 0.04 0.17 0.29 0.51 4750 1
Computed from 12,000 by 4221 log-likelihood matrix
Estimate SE
elpd_loo − 649.6 39.9
p_loo 3.1 0.3
looic 1299.3 79.7

Fig. 10. Gelman shrink factor plot.

questionnaire to the homeroom teachers so they can instruct partici­
pating students. The questionnaire consists of 26 multiple choices and 3
open questions. Further details about the dataset can be found in Q.-H.
Vuong et al. (2019).
3.2. Methods
To explore the association between children’s reading attitudes with
gender, parents’ intervention, and reading promotion activities, we
employ Bayesian analysis with the bayesvl R package. The package
allows us to construct Bayesian network models using the Markov chain
Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation technique and visualize the model (La
& Vuong, 2019; Ho, et al., 2020).
The Bayesian regression model examines the relationship between
gender, parental involvement, reading promotion activities, and middle
schoolers’ reading attitudes in Vietnam. Previous studies have examined
a subset of this dataset with information of 1676 students, and employed
the frequentist approach (Le et al., 2019; Tran et al., 2019). Now, we
have a chance to reexamine their results with the Bayesian approach and
a larger dataset of 4966 students. The Bayesian analysis is selected due
to its advantages. Since the reproducibility crisis is a severe problem in
social sciences, various studies showed the limitations of p-values
(Berger & Sellke, 1987; Goodman, 1999). Bayesian analysis has the
advantage of accommodating unobservable variables (Dunson, 2001). It
incorporates prior knowledge from previous studies, and posterior dis­
tributions can be updated with new information (Vuong et al., 2020).
3.3. Variables
Since this paper focuses on the impact of students’ gender, reading
promotion activities, and parents’ involvement on children’s reading
attitudes, the Bayesian analysis will include the following variables
(Table 1).

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Fig. 11. Density plot of the posterior coefficients of parents’ involvement variables on students’ interest in reading.

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Fig. 12. Intervals plot of the posterior coefficients of parents’ involvement variables on students’ interest in reading.

4. Result density plot (Fig. 5) and interval plot (Fig. 6).

4.1. Model 1: Sex and reading attitudes

4.2. Model 2: Parents’ intervention choices and students’ reading
attitudes
Model 1 aims at investigating the relationship between gender (Sex)
and reading attitudes (ReadBook). Its logical network is illustrated in
Parents could get their children to be engaged in reading; however,
Fig. 1.
choosing different interventions results in different impacts. To inves­
Before checking the convergence of the posterior coefficients, we
tigate the relationship between parents’ involvement and their chil­
plotted the shape parameter k of the generalized Pareto distribution to
dren’s reading attitude, we estimated and compared the impact of
check the reliability of the Pareto-smoothed importance sampling (PSIS)
reading books on children with the impact of buying books on their
estimate, which is used to improve the leave-one-out cross-validation
reading attitudes. The logical network of Model 2 is plotted in Fig. 7.
(LOO) estimate (Vehtari, Gelman, & Gabry, 2017). Since k < 0.5, the
Here, we present all the technical validation of Model 2. The PSIS
estimate is quickly converged (Fig. 2).
diagnostic plot shows that k < 0.5, which indicates that the estimate’s
The next step is to estimate the model’s posterior coefficients and run
convergence is quick (Fig. 8). All four Markov chains of the posterior
a diagnosis of their convergence. We used Bayesian MCMC simulation
coefficients are well-mixed and stationary, with 2000 warm-up itera­
with 2000 warm-up iterations, 5000 iterations, and 4 Markov chains for
tions and 5000 iterations (Fig. 9). The effective sample size n_eff greater
estimation. All the model’s coefficients have their priors had normal
than 4000 and the Gelman shrink factor equals 1, so the model has a
(0,10) distribution, as known as uninformative. The values of the two
good convergence (Table 3). Furthermore, the Gelman shrink factor plot
indicators, Gelman shrink factor Rhat = 1 and effective sample size n_eff
shows that the shrink factor quickly approaches 1 during the warm-up
greater than 10000, show that the Markov chains of the posterior co­
interactions (Fig. 10).
efficients converged well (Fig. 3 and Table 2). Fig. 2 shows the trace
The Bayesian regression results show that parents will have a posi­
plots of the Markov chains of the posterior coefficients, all of which are
tive association with children’s reading attitude only if they choose the
well-mixed and stationary.
proper intervention. At the same time, the Readstory variable’s coeffi­
To diagnose the convergence, we also plotted the Gelman Shrink
cient (b_Readstory = 0.16) shows that reading to children has a positive
Factor (see Fig. 4). The vertical axis represents the values of the shrink
association with children’s reading attitude, the negative coefficient of
factor, and the horizontal axis represents the number of iterations. All
the Buybook variable (b_Buybook = -0.31) says that buying books for
coefficients’ shrink factors drop to 1 before the 2000th iteration, so all
children yields a negative impact on their reading attitudes.
chains are well converged.
The density plot (Fig. 11) and the interval plot (Fig. 12) show that the
As shown in Table 2, female students showed greater interest in
posterior coefficients of Readstory (reading books to children) and
reading books than male students. However, the difference is negligible.
Buybook (buying books for children) have dense and narrow distribu­
The distribution of posterior coefficients is demonstrated with the
tions, which suggest a strong association between these activities with

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Q.-H. Vuong et al.
Fig. 13. Model 3′ s logical network.
reading.
4.3. Model 3: Reading promotion activities and reading attitudes
The purpose of Model 3 is to examine the effects of reading promo­
tion activities on students’ reading attitudes. Its logical network is
illustrated in Fig. 13. We present the technical validation and results of
this model in a way similar to the previous ones.
All the technical validation steps show that the model is valid and
reliable. First, in the PSIS diagnosis plot, k < 0.5, indicating that the
estimate is quickly converged (Fig. 14). The Markov simulation was
done with 2000 warm-up iterations, 5000 iterations, and 4 chains
(Fig. 15). All four chains are stationary and surrounding a specific value,
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Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311
indicating that the model has healthy convergence. The value of Rhat is
around 1, and n_eff is over 8000, which shows satisfactory convergence
(Table 4). The Gelman shrink factor plot shows that the shrink factor
quickly reduces to a level lower than the median after 2000th iterations,
showing that the model is well converged (Fig. 16).
As shown in Table 4, all types of reading promotion services has a
positive correlation with children’s reading attitude. Among which,
storytelling contest yields the strongest correlation with children
reading attitudes (b_Storytellingcontest = 2.77), following by book exhi­
bition (b_Bookexhibition = 2.72), story-writing contest (b_Storywritting­
contest = 2.51) and book illustrating (b_Drawingbookillustration = 2.22).
The density plot and interval plot of reading promotion activities’
coefficients on interest in reading are illustrated in Figs. 17 and 18. The
coefficients of book exhibitions and storytelling contests have dense and
narrow distributions, which suggest a strong association between these
activities with reading.
5. Discussion
This paper examines the association between students’ interest in
reading with their gender, parental involvement, reading promotion
activities. Consistent with previous studies, female students show
slightly more interest in reading than their counterparts. The findings on
parent’s intervention show that children get stronger motivation from
shared reading with their parents than from having parents buy books
for them. Finally, participating in reading promotion activities posi­
tively correlates with the attitude towards reading.
5.1. Gender differences in reading attitude
In previous studies, female students consistently have a better atti­
tude towards reading and read more than their male counterparts,
regardless of age and region. Our paper shows a similar result with our
previous study (Tran et al., 2019), although the gender difference is
insignificant. As reading attitude is generated from experience related to
reading, background, reading achievement, cultural norms, values, and
beliefs (Akbari et al., 2017; Day & Bamford, 1998), the gender differ­
ences in those factors could make girls like reading more than boys. In
Vietnamese culture (Q.-H. Vuong, 2020; Q.-H. Vuong et al., 2018),
gender is attached to a stereotype about which subjects they should
learn. Girls are thought to be more interested in social sciences and
humanities, while boys are more likely to learn natural sciences. Boys
who perform well at literature or history are thought to be “lack of
masculinity” (Mộc-Miên, 2012; Tóc-Nâu, 2014; Q.-H. Vuong et al.,
2018), and such stereotypes could discourage them from reading books
or develop literary skills.
5.2. Parents and students’ reading interest
Previous studies emphasized the role of parents and the home
reading environment as determining factors to the development of
children’ reading attitude (Baker & Wigfield, 1999; Bergin, 2001; De
Jong & Leseman, 2001; Grolig, Cohrdes, Tiffin-Richards, & Schroeder,
2019; Niklas, Cohrssen, & Tayler, 2016; Rowe, 1991; Tran et al., 2019).
Here, we found that how parents get involved in children’s reading
activities matters, and we emphasize the extent to which parents
interact with children. Similar to Bus, van Ijzendoorn, and Pellegrini
(1995), our evidence shows that building a print-rich home does not
have much impact on children’s engagement in reading since having a
book does not always mean reading it. However, shared reading does.
Shared reading directly involves children in reading, and it is the time
for parents to know their child’s reading ability and help them if any
difficulties emerge. It is a chance for the child to strengthen the paren­
t–child relationship, observe parents’ behaviors, and adapt or imitate
them, consciously or unconsciously. Thus, the quality of shared reading
could determine reading outcomes (Bergin, 2001).
Q.-H. Vuong et al.
Fig. 14. PSIS diagnosis plot of Model 3.
In contrast to our previous result, which found that parents can foster
a positive reading attitude by buying books and reading to them, this
article found that parents who buy books for their children could
discourage children from developing positive attitudes towards reading.
Perhaps, by buying books, parents might make children perceive
reading as an assignment rather than an activity that children find
intrinsically enjoyable and have the autonomy to do. Being deprived of
autonomy (Miserandino, 1996) and intrinsic motivation (F. M. Locher,
Becker, & Pfost, 2019) could be a backlash and demotivate children
from reading, which is similar to what children think about reading
school context. As a result, buying books might not encourage children
to read but encourage them to cheat to avoid reading (Duc Huynh,
2020). However, parents could be more proactive in suggesting children
to find books by themselves. The suggestion can provide children more
freedom to formulate their reading preferences. In the future, this
freedom might also benefit their own reading quality, as well as their
own proactive attitudes in life (Q.-H. Vuong, 2018, 2019). In the digital
era, using social media could be a promising tool for children to look for
reading trends quickly and even contribute to the community them­
selves (Thanh Ha & Thu, 2020).
5.3. Reading promotion activities and reading attitude
The findings show reading promotion activities to be positively
related to students’ reading attitudes. This relationship could be the
result of the snowball effect. Students who are already interested in
reading tend to like those programs more and eventually read more.
However, students who do not read much may also find these programs
interesting since they could find a diverse variety of books, or they want
to master other skills that are integrated into these programs.
The difference in the impact of examined programs probably lies in
their regularity, targeted audience, and how transferable reading skills
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Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311
are. Book exhibition strongly correlates with students’ interest in
reading because it is the most regularly organized activity. Targeting
many audiences, book exhibitions let students expose to wide categories
of new books, which offers them a chance to find books that fit their
preferences. Storytelling and writing contests require a high level of
language skills, rich vocabulary, and reading comprehension. These
skills are also the criteria to have a good reading ability, so this overlap
makes reading a transferable skill. In other words, those who like writing
and telling stories tend to feel more confident in their reading ability and
vice versa, which motivates them to read more. To draw book illustra­
tions needs both drawing and reading skills, so it targets a small group of
students who can read and draw. The lack of overlap between these two
skills makes it less attractive to students who lack either of these skills.
Students who like drawing may not find reading interesting as much and
vice versa. Despite this, drawing book illustrations offer an opportunity
to pick up the different skill set or transfer students’ interpretation from
books into drawings.
6. Conclusion
Our study’s material may be interesting to parents, teachers, and
stakeholders who are interested in creating a reading culture. The article
looks at how parents should intervene in students reading and what
activities could get students engaged in the act. To encourage students to
read, we suggest a collaboration among family, school, and government
enrich the reading culture. Our results emphasize the role of parents and
reading promotion activities in cultivating children’s reading habits and
attitudes. First, given how parents could shape students’ reading atti­
tudes and habits, parents should be trained and encouraged to read with
their children. Research points out that the frequency of shared reading
and the quality of parent–child interaction could influence the child’s
reading experience (Bergin, 2001). Nevertheless, we are concerned with
Q.-H. Vuong et al. Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311

Fig. 15. Trace plots of the posterior coefficients.

Table 4
The results of Bayesian regression between reading promotion activities and students’ interest in reading.
Inference for Stan model: fda61af9a5a855ac7a49f4d0f4dc2768. 4 chains, each with iter = 5000; warmup = 2000; thin = 1; post-warmup draws per chain = 3000, total post-warmup
draws = 12000.

Mean se_mean sd 2.5% 25% 50% 75% 97.5% n_eff Rhat

b_Bookexhibition 2.72 0.00 0.10 2.54 2.66 2.72 2.79 2.92 12,536 1
b_Storytellingcontest 2.77 0.00 0.12 2.54 2.68 2.77 2.85 3.01 10,002 1
b_Storywrittingcontest 2.51 0.00 0.16 2.21 2.40 2.50 2.61 2.82 11,415 1
b_Drawingbookillustration 2.22 0.00 0.11 2.02 2.14 2.22 2.29 2.43 8644 1
Computed from 12,000 by 4455 log-likelihood matrix
Estimate SE
elpd_loo − 1142.4 44.0
p_loo 3.9 0.2
looic 2284.8 88.0

challenges to implement training for parents since most of the Vietnam
population are farmers or unskilled labor, who would expect little value
from reading activities for themselves.
Second, since children found motivated to read books by joining
reading promotion activities, schools and government should use these
types of activities to create reading culture. Our results show that
reading promotion activities could target various audiences to make
them interested in reading. By aiming at a diverse combination of skill
sets, these programs could stimulate different groups of students, espe­
cially those interested in reading. Writing contests, storytelling contests,
and drawing book illustrations, by making reading a transferable skill,
helps students realize the values of reading beyond reading itself.
Reading promotion programs also make reading less a personal hobby
since students can find peers who share the same interest. This improves
reading culture since peer reading groups could motivate students to
read (Chiu, 2018).
Nonetheless, since reading is a complex subject, our paper could
hardly cover all the issues related to the matter and there are still lim­
itations (Q.-H. Vuong, 2020). Hence, we suggest future research to
investigate the factors that determine gender differences or the effec­
tiveness of reading activities. As we only have investigated the de­
terminants of students’ reading attitudes, we found a research gap on the
impact of these factors on reading habits. We must give caution in case
this paper is used for generalization in order to avoid erroneous use of
the results (Teixeira da Silva & Vuong, 2021). The dataset used in this
paper is only about secondary students in Northern Vietnam. Reading

14
Q.-H. Vuong et al. Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311

Fig. 16. Gelman shrink factor plot (Model 3).

15
Q.-H. Vuong et al. Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311

Fig. 17. Posterior coefficients of Mostlikedact variables on students’ interest in reading (1: Book exhibition; 2: Storytelling contest; 3: Storywriting contest; 4:
Drawing book illustration).

16
Q.-H. Vuong et al.
Fig. 18. Interval plot of the posterior coefficients (Model 3).
habits and attitudes can change and improve with age, the purpose of
reading. Therefore, the impact of parents and reading promotion ac­
tivities could change according to the situation. Second, reading culture
varies between families and communities due to their culture and so­
cioeconomic status; such variety could influence the examined vari­
ables’ relationship. Third, since book reading is not the only source of
knowledge, children’s preference for knowledge could significantly
impact their attitudes towards reading. Finally, many other factors
might demotivate children to read, such as the lack of quality reading
time and various enjoyable activities such as video games, televisions
(Vuong et al., 2021). Hence, investigating these aspects of reading is
promising and worthwhile for future research.
Data Availability Statement
The dataset is published in Data Intelligence: https://doi.org/10.11
62/dint_a_00091.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
We would like to send our gratitude to research staff of Vuong &
Associates (Hanoi, Vietnam) for assisting in collecting data, especially
Do Thu Hang, Dam Thu Ha, Ho Manh Tung, Nguyen To Hong Kong. Our
most sincere thanks also go on to personnel of junior high schools and
provincial departments that provided support during the survey.
17
Children and Youth Services Review 131 (2021) 106311
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