Influence of parents' education and home literacy environment on reading interest of deaf children.

Background: Reading interest plays an important role in predicting and regulating the literacy development of deaf children, but the family factors influencing their reading interest have not been previously explored. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of parents' education and home literacy environment (HLE) on reading interest of deaf children. Method: One hundred and thirty‐two deaf children from Grades 1 to 6 aged 8–15 from China participated in our study. The parents of these children completed our survey of parents' education, HLE and children's reading interest. These variables were then processed and analysed by correlation, regression analyses and structural equation modelling. Results: HLE played a complete intermediary role in the regression relationship between parents' education and reading interest of deaf children, and this effect had no significant difference between genders. Conclusions: Parents' education has a positive and predictive effect on reading interest of deaf children, while creating a high‐quality HLE may improve this effect. Highlights: What is already known about this topicMany studies on typically developing children have shown that parents' education has a significant impact on children's reading interest.HLE is generally believed as one of the important pathways to transform parents' education to children's reading achievement.Reading interest is closely related to children's reading achievement. What this paper addsParents' education influences reading interest of deaf children, which is mediated by HLE.The effects of parents' education and HLE on reading interest of deaf children are not significantly different between genders. Implications for theory, policy or practiceThe educational resources of parents of deaf children may have an impact on children's reading interest.Actively creating rich HLE for deaf children may improve children's reading interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]