Half of the children do not own a book: early childhood book access and shared reading in a middle-income country

Although the developmental benefits of parent–child shared book reading in early childhood are well established and pediatric care provides an opportunity to promote it, shared reading remains underutilized in low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to describe daily shared reading, its duration, and the number of children’s books in early childhood and to examine their associations with each other and with parental literacy-related factors in a low-resource setting. This cross-sectional study included 296 children aged 0–6 years attending a pediatric outpatient clinic in Van, Türkiye. Data were obtained from parents using interviewer-administered questionnaires on sociodemographic characteristics, whether they engaged in daily shared reading with their child, the duration of shared reading, and household book counts, including the numbers of children’s and parental books. Analyses included univariate comparisons, correlation analyses, and multivariable logistic regression models adjusting for child-level variables. Overall, 49.7% of children did not engage in daily shared reading, and the median shared reading duration was 5 min/day (IQR 0–30). Half of the children (50.0%) had no children’s books in the home, and 20.9% had no parental books. In univariate analyses, higher parental education, maternal employment, preschool attendance, and urban residence were associated with both shared reading and the number of children’s books (all p < 0.05), whereas child age and sex were not. Correlation analyses showed a moderate association between shared reading and the number of children’s books (r s = 0.564, p < 0.001), and between children’s and parental book counts (r s = 0.570, p < 0.001). In multivariable analyses, higher maternal and paternal education and maternal employment were independently associated with both outcomes (all p < 0.05), after adjustment for child-level variables. Daily shared reading and the number of children’s books were limited in this low-resource setting and were associated with parental literacy-related factors. These findings highlight early constraints in home-based literacy environments in a pediatric care population and suggest a potential role for pediatric services in supporting early literacy.