ABSTRACT
The working-class environment is acknowledged as having a detrimental effect on a child’s endeavours to read. Not all working-class environments have a retarding effect, but the incidence of poor reading is very much related to class. Parental attitudes do seem to have an important role to play in reading development. In the few studies within this area, parental encouragement appears to be of paramount importance and the socio-economic status of the parents appears to be less important. An apparent environmental influence, that of the television, appears to have little effect on reading development. One alternative explanation could be that parents of retarded readers due to genetic reasons are also poor readers, so the lack of reading on the part of parents and the relationship of this to backward reading in children may be an effect of genetically transmitted reading retardation.
