• Fathers’ participation in shared book reading has important and unique contributions to children’s development.
• Fathers can successfully and effectively engage in shared reading with their children regardless of their own reading abilities or confidence with reading aloud.
• Fathers who view shared reading as part of their parental responsibility and as an opportunity to bond with their children are more likely to engage in shared book reading activities.

What is shared book reading?

Shared book reading occurs when an adult – typically a family member or caregiver – reads to and with a child. This is a common practice for many families across the world. Familial shared book reading is important for many reasons: It introduces young children to print concepts such as book orientation and reading direction, promotes a range of early language and literacy skills in children, and helps develop positive relationships between caregivers and children.

Shared book reading is uniquely important for children’s development

The types of language exchanges that occur during shared reading are typically more advanced than those occurring in everyday conversations between children and adults. Additionally, the text found in books used during shared book reading introduces children to new vocabulary words beyond what they typically hear in their daily lives.

Parents also tend to engage with their children differently during shared book reading than they do in other types of activities, such as physical play or pretend play. Specific to father-child interactions, research shows that the diversity of fathers’ vocabulary, the number of questions asked, and the length of spoken sentences is greater during shared reading than it is while playing with toys (Salo et al., 2016). This positions shared book reading as a key activity that fathers can engage in that promotes children’s development in many areas.

Fathers interact with children in positive ways during shared book reading

Recent decades have seen increases in fathers’ participation in a variety of activities with their children, including shared book reading. Although some fathers and mothers tend to read books with their children in similar ways, research has shown that Dads interact with their children differently than mothers while reading with their children (Cutler & Palkovitz, 2020). Specifically, fathers ask children more open-ended questions (who, why) – a practice that challenges children’s thinking and expands their language skills (Rowe et al., 2004). Dads also engage in more conversationally challenging interactions with their children during shared book reading than do mothers (Anderson et al., 2004; Tomasello et al., 1990).

Photo: RODNAE Productions. Pexels.

Physical interactions also differ during reading. Recent research has shown that fathers are more likely than mothers to engage in close, interlocking contact while reading with their children, a behavior that helps promote a positive reading experience between parents and children (Cutler, 2020).

What fathers say and do during shared book reading matters for children’s development

Both the quantity and quality of father-child exchanges during shared book reading predict children’s language and literacy skills, influencing what children say and understand. For example, fathers’ linguistic complexity (the types of vocabulary words used, how many overall words are spoken) is positively associated with children’s expressive language (what they say; Rowe et al., 2004; Tomasello et al., 1990). Fathers’ participation in shared book reading also positively affects children’s receptive language skills (what they understand from spoken language; Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2004).

Language input

Additionally, fathers’ language input while reading books to their children is related to children’s general academic outcomes. Children whose fathers frequently participated in shared book reading activities with them when they were two years old had more advanced social-emotional skills and higher reading and math scores in pre-kindergarten than did children whose fathers read with them less often (Baker, 2013). Furthermore, fathers’ engagement in shared book reading is positively associated with children’s attention skills and ability to regulate emotions, especially for boys (Malin et al., 2014).

Why are fathers less likely than mothers to read to children?

Yet despite the important contributions fathers make to their children’s development through shared book reading, they are less likely than mothers to consistently read with their children or to be the main reader in the household. This gap has narrowed in recent decades, though, as fathers have increased their general levels of participation in their children’s lives.

Both the quantity and quality of father-child exchanges during shared book reading predict children’s language and literacy skills, influencing what children say and understand.

For some U.S. families, a positive outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the rise in family participation in reading activities, including between fathers and their children (Carlson et al., 2022; Mayol-García, 2022). Maintaining a higher level of father participation in shared book reading can have both short- and long-term positive effects on children, families, and communities. What factors may influence whether these trends continue?

Factors predicting fathers’ participation in shared book reading

Many factors influence how frequently fathers read with their children, including familial ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds. In cultures across the globe, views vary regarding parents’ and familial caregivers’ roles in supporting young children’s language and literacy development. Though parent-child shared book reading is common in many countries, not all cultures favor shared reading as the primary way to involve children in literacy activities.

For example, some Hispanic and Native American families view oral storytelling as more important than or equally important as reading books with their children (Janes & Kermani, 2001; Nelson-Strouts & Gillispie, 2017). Such practices benefit children’s development and can be considered complementary activities fathers can participate in with their children.

Photo: Karolina Grabowska. Pexels.

Father’s views on parenting roles

Father’s views of their parenting roles and responsibilities also play a part. Fathers who view shared book reading as part of their parenting responsibility or whose partners expect them to read with their children are more likely to do so (Ortiz, 2004; Swain et al., 2017). The overall level of engagement fathers have with their children is also associated with the likelihood that they will read with them. It makes sense that fathers who are very involved and available to their children are more likely to read with them.

Furthermore, fathers’ personal experiences with reading affect how often they read with their children. Dads who are confident readers, who enjoy reading themselves, and who have had positive experiences with reading, either at home or in school (or both), are more likely to participate in shared reading activities with their children than dads who have not had these experiences (Duursma et al., 2008; Ortiz, 2004).

The types of books available

The type of books available during shared book reading and fathers’ perceptions of the purpose of shared reading experiences can also influence how often they participate in this activity. Some Dads feel more comfortable reading informational or non-fiction books than fiction books with their children (Robertson & Reese, 2017). The availability of books in the home in fathers’ native languages also affects how likely they are to read with their children. Fathers who have limited literacy or who speak a different first language than their children are less likely to participate in shared book reading (Duursma et al., 2008; Ortiz, 2004).

All fathers can engage in shared book reading, regardless of their reading ability or familiarity with reading aloud

Attitudes matter, too. Sitting close to or holding a child while relaxing and sharing books together is often perceived as a time of emotional closeness between parents and children. Dads who view shared book reading as an opportunity to spend time with and bond with their children are more likely to participate than fathers who view the experience as a chore or as a way to teach their children a lesson (Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1992; Janes & Kermani, 2001).

Conclusion

By engaging in shared reading with their children, fathers can support children’s development while also fostering positive father-child relationships. Many fathers across the world recognize the importance of shared book reading. However, the rates at which fathers read with their children continues to lag behind that of mothers.

Highlighting the unique contributions Dads make to children’s development through reading is an important consideration for programs and policies designed to support families and communities. Supporting fathers who are hesitant to read with their children or feel less confident about reading is also important.

All fathers can engage in shared book reading, regardless of their reading ability or familiarity with reading aloud. Here are suggestions for how to ensure that all fathers feel supported in shared book reading.

Considerations for fatherhood programs and family literacy initiatives

• Normalize and promote father-child shared book reading as an important activity for fathers.
• Highlight the unique contributions fathers make to their children’s development by engaging in shared reading.
• Focus on the overall importance of sharing books and not on being a “perfect” reader. (For example, encourage the idea that stories can be shared without reading every single word on the page.)
• Ensure that messaging and marketing materials promoting family literacy activities feature fathers.
• Select books to share that are of interest to a wide range of fathers and that account for the varying literacy abilities of adult readers, such as books that feature fathers interacting with their children in positive ways, bilingual books, and wordless picture books.
• Offer books that portray fathers from varying racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, as well as fathers from varying family constellations (single fathers, same-sex fathers, kin fathers, stepfathers).

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• Supportive fathers influence their children in significant ways, including the development of cognitive and social skills.
• The positive impact of fathers is greater when fathers’ relationships with mothers are strong and supportive.
• Fathers can help their children’s development through supportive and involved parenting and engaging activities, such as reading books and playing.

To fully understand the significance of a father’s influence on his children, we will explore four key areas:

1. Father-child attachment and later development
2. Father influence on a child’s achievements
3. Father influence on a child’s social skills
4. The mother-father relationship

1. Father-child attachment influences children’s later development

When there is a strong father-child attachment in the first two years, research shows a link with the child’s later social skills, cognitive skills (e.g., language, school achievement) and behavior. In this way, fathers influence their children’s futures.

These links between strong father-child attachment and later child development are greatest when fathers are more involved in parenting. This suggests that involved fathers have the potential to make a big difference in their child’s life.

Involved fathers have the potential to make a big difference in their child’s life.

2. Fathers have a significant influence on their child’s achievements

Fathers who provide primary care for their two-year-olds have children who achieve higher scores on academic tests. (The same is true of mothers.) Anne Martin and her team found that mothers and fathers who provided primary care for their children when they were two had five-year-olds with higher arithmetic and language scores.

Eirini Flouri and Ann Buchanan found that British children with more involved fathers had higher IQs at age seven than did children with less involved fathers. Other researchers have found similar associations at 11 years and 16 years.

Some researchers have worked to distinguish fathers’ influences on educational performance from the effects of other wider family and community influences. The links remain: Fathers who are supportive appear to promote their children’s language and cognitive development.

3. Fathers influence their children’s social skills

In a large British study, when mothers reported that fathers were involved with their seven-year-olds, the children were more likely to report being close to their fathers at 16 and to have less contact with police during adolescence. Other researchers have found even longer-lasting links – fathers’ involvement with their six-year-olds appeared to positively influence  the feelings of their offspring when they were in their 30s, more than 25 years later.

Photo: Mieke Campbell. Pexels.

High levels of paternal involvement in childhood also predict offspring’s social interaction styles in adulthood, as well as their married relationships, parenting skills, and mental health. The converse has also been shown – low paternal involvement and poor child-father attachments predict more psychological and social problems later.

Ross Parke and his colleagues found that a physically playful and affectionate father-son relationship predicted sons’ later popularity with peers. Other researchers have found that fathers who were more sensitive to their five-year-olds’ emotional states had more socially competent children three years later.

Researchers have examined whether fathers and mothers exert different influences on the social development of their children. It is very difficult to separate these influences from the many roles mothers and fathers play in different families. However, researchers have found that children who reported secure attachments to both their parents were more likely to report positive friendships than children who did not.

Mothers influence father-child relationships and fathers influence mother-child relationships.

4. The mother-father relationship influences children

The last 20 years have seen a lot of research on how family members influence the relationships of other family members with children. Studies suggest that mothers influence father-child relationships and fathers influence mother-child relationships.

A key influence on the father-child relationship is how supportive the mother is of this relationship, as well as the quality of the mother-father relationship.

The inverse is also true: Both the father and the mother-father relationship influence the mother-child relationship, but the influence is less. This may be because maternal behavior is framed by clearer conventions and role definitions, while fathers’ roles and behavior are more influenced by what mothers believe.

Mothers’ mental health also affects the father-child relationship, and fathers’ mental health affects the mother-child relationship. Sometimes the response can be compensatory. For example, when mothers suffer from postnatal depression, fathers often engage in more positive interactions with their babies.

Conclusion

The conclusion of this research is clear: A father who wants to be close to his children and positively influence their future should invest in relationships with both the children and their mothers.

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Greater father involvement has been found to be linked with academic performance at school. This was true for all socioeconomic groups.

Researchers have found that greater involvement by fathers is linked with academic performance at school—a finding that held true among all socioeconomic groups. The link was small for measures like language and mathematics scores, but considerable in relation to reducing the extent to which children repeated grades at school. For example, one measure of father involvement, residence with the child, is associated with a 23% lower likelihood of repeating a grade.

The link with grades is much smaller. Fathers’ residence with a child is associated with only a 1.3% increase in reading scores and a 1.5% increase in mathematics scores.

The same phenomenon was found with other measures of father involvement – the involvement of resident fathers in school, and the extent of nonresident father involvement in the child’s life.

Previous research on parental involvement and social capital helps to interpret this pattern. The greater impact of father involvement is likely linked to behavior rather than cognitive development. More constructive behavior is likely to affect things like repeating grades more than it affects actual test performance.

The researchers divided a diverse sample of children – 12,030 in total – into five socioeconomic levels, from poorer to richer. They found that the links between father residence and non-resident father involvement, on the one hand, and academic performance, on the other, were the same at all socioeconomic levels. However, school involvement by low-SES fathers was more beneficial to their children than school involvement by high-SES fathers. It may be that the contribution of low-SES fathers to school provides more compensation for various sources of disadvantage among low-SES children.

Fathers from low-SES groups scored lower on all measures of father involvement examined in the study – residence, resident father school involvement and non-resident father involvement. For example, 58% of fathers in the lowest SES quintile lived in the same household as their children, compared to 90% of fathers in the highest quintile. On average, resident fathers in the lowest quintile were involved in one less school activity (out of four) than resident fathers in the highest quintile.

The researchers ran a statistical simulation. What would happen to children’s school achievement if fathers in the lowest SES quintile became as involved as fathers in the highest SES quintile? If low-SES resident fathers were as involved in school as high-SES fathers, the gap between high-SES and low-SES children in repeating grades would drop by 23%. Increasing the involvement of non-resident fathers would reduce disparities just a little, whilst increasing the extent of father residence would produce negligible change.

Given the particular impact that father involvement in school appears to have, the researchers recommend focusing on this. They recognize the challenges, however. For example, involvement in school requires some flexibility in work patterns and some degree of stability in work. Not being in prison is also a prerequisite. School involvement also requires some familiarity with and confidence in the education system. All of these things are bigger challenges among low-SES fathers. With these considerations in mind, the researchers recommend a focus on wider social, economic and social capital development involving fathers – for example, re-entry to family life after imprisonment, support for education and training, income support, and campaigns to promote stable work.

This study used data from the much bigger Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K), which followed a large panel of children, fully representative of the national population, from 1998 to 2007. The sample used for this analysis numbered 12,030 children. Academic measures were taken through direct assessments (a particularly robust measure) and from school reports. There were three measures of father involvement – father residence, father involvement in school, and non-resident fathers’ contribution of in-kind and financial support.

Earlier research has categorized a variety of forms of father involvement: material (food, rent), social (quality and quantity of time with children) and school involvement (e.g., communication with teachers about schoolwork and about the child’s performance, or parent-teacher meetings). In all cases, nonresident fathers have fewer opportunities for involvement. Many nonresident fathers provide financial support, through child support and additional informal material support. Such contributions play a role in assuring the child of the father’s commitment.

One question for researchers has been whether the involvement of low-SES fathers makes a greater difference to children’s outcomes than the involvement of high-SES fathers. In the research reported here, the answer was yes. But low-SES fathers have less human, social and economic capital, so their involvement may make less difference to their children. For example, a low-SES father may help his child with homework for the same amount of time as a higher-SES father, but he may have fewer tutoring skills or less knowledge to drawn on. Conversely, the contribution by the lower-SES father may more strongly compensate for other disadvantages in the child’s life and so make a bigger difference. A  substantial study in UK has looked at this question, finding that the contribution of fathers to improved academic outcomes is the same across all socioeconomic groups.

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The overall sensitivity of the fathers during play in this sample of 312 families – 119 African American fathers and 193 Latino fathers – was high.

A research study focusing on low-income Latino and African American fathers in the USA has found a correlation between how sensitively they play with their preschool children and their children’s math achievement scores in kindergarten. This correlation exists irrespective of the level of mothers’ sensitive support for these children.

The researchers’ combined various aspects into their measure of sensitive play:following the child’s lead in what the child wants to play with, responding positively to the child’s behaviors and language, and helping the child when needed. 

Overall in this sample of 312, fathers’ sensitivity during play was high. In all the families selected for the research, the father lived in the child’s home. (This means the research is not fully representative of fathers’ contributions in all family formations.)

The correlation was found between sensitive play and kindergarten math achievement only; there was no correlation with reading achievement.

According to the researchers, “Early childhood intervention programs focused on parenting skills too often focus almost exclusively on mothers and neglect the importance of involving fathers.” They argue that the results of this play study show that supporting fathers can lead to better academic achievement at school. But they caution that “involving fathers in early childhood programs will require innovative delivery models that accommodate the needs and preferences of fathers.”

Much research shows a link between preschool parenting and early school academic achievement. Parental sensitivity can buffer the negative effects of the kinds of risks that are more prevalent in the environments where many ethnic minority families live. 

The great majority of research on this link focuses on mothers, but evidence is growing that fathers also play an important role. The role of a father is particularly important when the mother is unsupportive of the children: supportive fathering is associated with higher school readiness in children whose mothers are unsupportive.

One problem in the research is that measures of parental sensitivity tend to be designed to capture how mothers care for children. Such measures may not capture important aspects of how fathers interact with their children. On average, observations show, fathers care for their children differently from mothers, with more teasing, more physical play and risk taking, and the use of more challenging language.

The deficit in research regarding fathers is even stronger in relation to ethnic minority fathers. Some research adopts a ‘deficit perspective’, focusing on the problems of ethnic minority fatherhood such as father absence. Yet research shows generally high levels of father contribution: one study found that two–thirds of fathers in a racially diverse study read to their toddler at least once a week.

To understand parenting in ethnic minority families, we must take into account the environmental conditions that such families experience—for example, high rates of poverty and confronting racism and prejudice. Such environmental factors can require a different parenting approach to prepare the child for a different world. For example, the “no nonsense” parenting style seen in some African American families may be a necessary protective factor for the children and can be associated with high levels of warmth.

In this research project, involving 119 African American and 193 Latino fathers (mostly Mexican), the children were observed and videoed at play, first with their fathers and then their mothers. When the child was 2.5 years old, each parent was given three bags with toys in them to open and play with their child over 15 minutes. This process was repeated when the child was 3.5 years old (but with only two bags and for only 10 minutes). Later, in kindergarten, the child was tested for academic achievement in both math and language.

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When a father supports a toddler’s autonomy, the child is likely to show better executive function at the age of five and so be readier for school.

How a father interacts with his toddler is important for the child’s executive function—a key component of early childhood cognitive development and a good indicator of school readiness at the age of five. When fathers support three-year-olds’ autonomy rather than controlling their activity, a new study finds, children are likely to show better executive function at the age of five and so be readier for school.

The researchers recommend more attention to fathers’ early parenting skills as a means to improve outcomes for children at school.

Though previous research has also shown a link between executive function and parenting that supports children’s autonomy, those studies have focused almost exclusively on mothers. In recent years, the types of parenting typically associated with fathers have attracted more research interest. For example, how does autonomy support work during play – teaching the child to manage states of high excitement, for example – and what are the links between children’s play and their executive function?

Executive function—a set of mental skills that helps people gain control over their actions and thoughts—fundamentally influences a child’s ability to learn. Because executive function helps children sit still, focus on the teacher and persist in difficult tasks, it is more important for success in preschool than early language and math skills. Executive function in early childhood also predicts later educational achievement, wealth, health and low criminality, and it explains part of the different in early achievement between children from lower- and higher-income families.

Support for autonomy, according to the researchers, means, “Guidance that supports children’s sense of competence and lets children use their own skills, as opposed to taking over the task or letting them struggle.” An autonomy-supportive adult, they write, “needs to respect the child’s pace, organize the task so that the child can be successful, and give help contingent on the child’s current ability.”

In this study, 89 father-child pairs were assessed twice, when the child was three and when the child was five. The key measure at three years was the child’s executive function. At five years, this measure was extended to cover literacy and numeracy, creating a composite measure termed “school readiness”. So at five, the researchers measured how children managed picture arithmetic and word problems and an increasingly complicated card sorting exercise, how they performed the “Simon says” game, and how well they were able to resist opening a present for them which was left in the room alone with them for an unreasonably long time.

Father-child interaction was measured in two ways. The first was a puzzle just a bit too difficult for the child to do alone. This is a traditional measure of whether a parent supports autonomy or controls the child and was designed in studies with mothers.

For this study of executive function, the researchers invented another measurement, looking at how father and child played together in a gym. They were presented with four pieces of playground equipment and asked to play for 10 minutes. Videos of the activity were then carefully assessed – how fathers made suggestions to the child to enhance play, the father’s responsiveness to the child’s ideas, how much stimulation the father provided if the child got bored, the degree of sharing and having fun together, the extent to which the father provoked risk and excitement (e.g., by throwing, lifting, or tickling), and how engaged the father himself was in the play.

Three notable results emerged.

First, as stated above, autonomy support by the father when the child was three correlated with the school readiness measure when the child was five. This shows the significance of early parenting by fathers for school readiness.

Second, when children’s executive function was lower at three, fathers were more likely to be controlling at three and more prone to overstimulation during play at five. This suggests a two-way influence – a child’s executive function may influence the father’s parenting.

Third, the researchers found a stronger link between children’s executive function at five and measures from the gym exercise than they did between executive function and measures from the puzzle exercise, suggesting that the role of how parents play has been underestimated.

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An extra 5 hours/week spent in solo father-child learning activity makes as big a difference to child development as having a university-educated father.

When a father spends time in learning activities with his child, the child is likely to do better on vocabulary tests, according to an analysis of data from a major Australian study that followed children over time. Furthermore, the association between parent-child learning activity and the child’s cognitive development is stronger for fathers than it is for mothers.

To examine the link between fathers spending time alone with their children at the ages of  4, 6 and 8 and the children’s cognitive development, the researchers extracted data from the study for 3,273 children. All the fathers were biological and living at home with the child.

The amount of time a father spent with his child overall was only weakly associated with better cognitive development, as was the case for mothers. A father’s spending time in structured activities (e.g. sport and music lessons) was more strongly linked with better cognitive development than was spending time in entirely unstructured activities. But the strongest correlation of all was for learning activities specifically, such as reading and playing educational games.

An extra five hours spent in father-child learning activities was associated with an increase of about one point on the vocabulary test, which has a scoring range of zero to 100. This increase is comparable to the estimated effect of having a parent with a university education.

The link between extra father-and-child learning activities and the child’s improved cognitive development was the same for both well-educated and less educated fathers. This finding was something of a surprise, because better educated fathers have more skills, more social capital, and greater language ability, and they tend to have higher expectations of their children.

Still, children with better educated fathers show better cognitive development overall. That’s because better educated fathers, on average, spend more time in learning activities with their children. This is a key reason that children from better educated households tend to have better cognitive outcomes.

The researchers offer a number of explanations for why cognitive development tends to improve when children experience more learning activities with their fathers.

Adding the father’s contribution to the mother’s provides greater diversity of experience for the child. Since children learn from observation and role modelling, two parents are likely to contribute more than one.

There may be other, less direct effects on cognitive development. When a father spends more time with his children, he is sharing more responsibility for childcare with the mother, which benefits the mother’s employment, the mother’s capacity to care for the child, and the mother-father relationship. Children’s cognitive development benefits from all of these things.

Why might the association between parent-child learning activities and the child’s cognitive development be stronger for fathers than it is for mothers? The researchers offer four possible explanations.

• An involved father may be an indicator of other benefits to the child, such as less parental conflict and more social capital, which amplify association.
• Mothers may be more likely to organise learning activities for their children even when they are not present, so that the correlation between “being there” and positive child outcomes is smaller for mothers.
• Mothers may be more likely to increase the time they spend with a struggling child, creating an association with cognitive ability in the opposite direction.
• Mothers tend to spend a lot more time overall with children than fathers do, so perhaps extra time put in by mothers has a smaller marginal effect than the same amount of extra time put in by the father.

The researchers draw attention to the fact that all fathers, irrespective of education, can equally contribute to improving cognitive development by putting in more time with their children and focusing on learning activities when they do

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An evaluation of the program found that fathers who participated reported more positive parenting on their part than fathers in a control group who did not participate in the program. They said that they criticised their children less and encouraged them more. They also reported more constructive responses to difficult child behavior.

Researchers observed greater improvements in the children’s cognitive development. Language skills improved more, including both auditory comprehension and expression.

The science behind the program: supporting fathers’ parenting via a focus on cognitive skills

FSSP is ultimately about supporting parenting skills, such as letting children take the lead during child-centered time, reinforcing positive child behaviors and having age-appropriate expectations for children. The program approaches these skills via an activity that is known to be popular with dads – helping their children to learn and be ready for school.

In the relatively few research studies about the impact of parent support programs on fathers, results are mixed when it comes to enhanced child cognitive and social development. This could be because of poor technique in engaging fathers. In one experiment, 70% of dads dropped out, suggesting a major problem in program design.

Programs for mothers tend to focus on daily household and caring activities. The logic behind FSSP is that this is not the best place to start with fathers, partly because many do less of this routine work than mothers do. Also, dads tend to be highly sensitive to judgment about their parenting and wary about anything that suggests that their parenting is inadequate.

FSSP places the focus on cognitive development – developing children’s language skills and preparing for school entry.

How FSSP works: focus on storytelling

The program is designed around group viewing and discussion of short videos of high- and low-quality parenting. Fathers are invited to apply their own expertise and analysis in the discussion. The short video clips are first discussed in breakout groups of three or four, followed by a full group discussion. This discussion is fueled by questions such as, What messages were conveyed to the child by the behavior shown? and What is the impact on the child, on the father-child relationship and on the family?

Facilitators are not required to be highly qualified specialists. In this program, they were volunteers from local Head Start early childhood services. They included teachers, service receptionists and social workers. All received three two-hour training sessions and a manual.

The videos focus on storytelling with the child, using picture books. The fathers do not have to be literate. The children are encouraged to become the storytellers. Fathers are shown the techniques of praising effort, correcting without criticism and tailoring feedback and questions to the child’s level of development.

This evaluation involved 126 Hispanic fathers from New York City, divided equally between those who joined the program immediately and those who were put on a waiting list to participate later. The eight weekly 90-minute group sessions took place in the late afternoon, with a meal provided; each group had six to 12 dads. On average, dads attended 79 percent of the eight sessions.

Implications for future engagement of fathers in child development

Rolling out programs like this for fathers presents substantial practical difficulties. Many services for parents work only with mothers and have few relationships with fathers. And many are strapped for resources. For this study, many early-years services in New York could not recruit enough fathers to run a single regular group, even though the program was simple to deliver and didn’t require highly qualified specialists.

Ultimately, providing just one program for dads in a community will capture the interest of only some. Furthermore, some fathers would prefer activities that also include mothers, yet earlier research has shown that low-income mothers tend to be less keen on that idea than fathers are. We have a long way to go before early-years services routinely and effectively provide programs that engage fathers in improving child development.

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The new evidence again shows that it’s important to engage fathers in infant speech development if we’re to narrow the vocabulary gap between children in lower- and higher-income families.

The research focused on two aspects of how parents support a young child’s speech development: (1) how often the father uses who, what, where, when, why and how questions, and (2) how much the father repeats words. Fathers and their two-year-olds were videotaped at home for 10 minutes of semi-structured play. Their conversation was transcribed and analysed for the use of who, what, where, when, why and how questions and for repetition of words.

The 41 fathers of two-year olds in this study varied widely in their practices. Though on average low-income fathers scored less than middle-class fathers on vocabulary scores, some of the fathers in this sample were highly communicative by any standards, including by comparison to middle-class fathers in other studies.

The researchers found that the children of fathers who used more who, what, where, when, why and how questions were more likely to have better vocabularies and also to score higher on verbal reasoning tests one year later. There was no such correlation for yes/no questions, nor the total number of words the father used. This suggests that who, what, where, when, why and how questions play a particular role in developing a child’s vocabulary.

Meanwhile, the better the child’s vocabulary, the less likely fathers were to repeat words. The finding held even when controlling for the father’s education level (it’s known that the way fathers speak to their children is influenced by their education). This suggests that the fathers are responding to the child’s developing abilities – repetition of words is important in the very early stages, but becomes less useful as the child’s speaking ability increases. Earlier research has found that parents’ repetition of words peaks when the baby is four to six months old and then declines when the child reaches two years.

The alternative scenario – that fathers increased use of repetition was causing a child’s reduced language ability, rather than responding to it – was discounted by the fact that there was no link between increased repetition when the child was two and the child’s verbal reasoning at three years old.

In many ways, how mothers and fathers speak with their young children is similar. For example, they both use repetition, high pitch and shorter utterances. There are some differences, however, such as greater use of who, what, where, when, why and how questions for fathers. On average, fathers also ask children for clarification more often. Thus fathers have an influence on child vocabulary that is independent of mothers’.

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The study used data on 4,240 boys from the larger and socially representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) in USA. About 20% of the sample was African American, 26% Hispanic and 54% Caucasian.

When the children were two years old, fathers reported on three aspects of fatherhood: warm and loving interactions, control and discipline, and home learning stimulation (e.g., reading with the child). When the children were three, they participated in cognitive tests (language and math) and test of social and emotional development (how much they engaged in a play exercise with their mother).

Fathers who showed warmth and who participated in home learning activities were more likely to have boys who had higher reading and math scores and who showed greater engagement with the game in the social and emotional development test. Paternal warmth predicted less negative behavior in the same test.

Only for African American fathers was there a link between increased control and discipline and a higher math score and a higher social and emotional development score.

This finding contradicts earlier studies, but those studies combined races and also sons and daughters, perhaps hiding variation by gender and race. There is a great deal of interest in the role that father-son relationships play in African American families, and other studies have shown that positive father-son relationships predict better behavior in school by African American boys.

This study also found that poverty reduced the link between paternal warmth and boys’ reading scores, corresponding with other evidence suggesting that affluence improves children’s literacy skills.

Though these aspects weren’t the focus of the study, the data also showed that the strongest predictor of boys’ cognitive and social emotional development was the level of education of both their mothers and fathers, and that the number of children living in the home was the strongest predictor of lower scores.

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