Shared reading and independent book engagement in early childhood: associations with the home literacy environment in a Turkish pediatric outpatient population.

Objective: To explore parental reading practices and factors associated with parental reading to children and children's independent engagement with books within the Home Literacy Environment (HLE). Methods: This cross-sectional study included 362 parents of children aged 1-6 years who attended the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic of Ankara Bilkent City Hospital between October and December 2025. Parents completed a 28-item questionnaire assessing their demographic characteristics, home literacy practices, parental reading habits, access to books, and children's independent book engagement. Firth's bias-reduced penalized likelihood logistic regression was used for multivariable analyses. Results: Shared reading was common, occurring daily in 47.3% and 2-3 times per week in 29.3% of families, most often during the evening or bedtime routines (64.2%). Maternal education was strongly associated with parental reading to the child; mothers with a university degree or higher had higher odds of reading to their children than those with a high school education or below [odds ratio (OR) = 14.31; 95% confidence interval (CI): 4.73-50.21; Conclusion: Parental reading and children's independent book engagement were associated with different components of the HLE. These exploratory findings suggest that both parental characteristics and everyday home literacy practices may be relevant to shared reading and independent book engagement, and may help inform future efforts to integrate family-centered literacy guidance into pediatric care.