Having a Home Library Can Have Powerful Impact on Children, Says Study

In this day and age of search engines, social media and mobile devices, is it still a good idea to have your own library at home? While some may argue e-books and online tools can helps then save space, experts still believe that having physical books at home is still important – particularly if you have young children living at home.

According to a new study, having a home library can have a great impact on children – and it can be an advantage that they can bring well into adulthood.

In a paper entitled “Scholarly culture: How books in adolescence enhance adult literacy, numeracy and technology skills in 31 societies,” authors studied 160,000 adults from 2011 and 2015 and discovered that “having 80 or more books in a home results in adults with significantly higher levels of literacy, numeracy, and information communication technology (ICT) skills,” a BigThink article tells us.

As the paper says:

“Growing up with home libraries boosts adult skills in these areas beyond the benefits accrued from parental education or own educational or occupational attainment.”

Furthermore, we learn that children who grew up with libraries at home and attain high school level education “become as literate, numerate and technologically apt in adulthood as university graduates who grew up with only a few books.”

Study lead author Dr. Joanna Sikora of Australian National University likewise mentioned that these benefits were often experienced in homes that had 80 to 350 books. In the United States, the average number of books owned by families is 114 – which is a good number, according to the study.

The paper also pointed out:

“Early exposure to books in [the] parental home matters because books are an integral part of routines and practices that enhance lifelong cognitive competencies.

“These competencies facilitate educational and occupational attainment, but they also lay a foundation for lifelong routine activities that enhance literacy and numeracy.”