In this study we adapted DeBaryshe and Binder’s Parent Reading Belief Inventory (PRBI) with middle‐class, well‐educated (M = 14–15 years of education) Taiwanese mothers to find what their beliefs were about reading aloud to young children. Parental reports of home literacy practices including children’s emergent literacy behaviours were also surveyed. Seven hundred and thirty‐one mothers and their three‐ to five‐year‐old preschoolers (389 boys and 242 girls; M = 54.7 months) were recruited from both public (279) and private (452) licensed pre‐kindergarten programmes located in the six districts of Tainan city in Taiwan. Factor analysis resulted in the retention of 24 items from the original PRBI scales; these organised into five subscales (Knowledge, Verbal Participation, Positive Affect, Teaching Efficacy and Reading Instruction) with adequate alpha coefficients ranging from .63 to .90. The key concepts featuring parent reading belief from both cultures were quite similar. Taiwanese mothers did place more value on moral and practical knowledge that children would gain from the storybook reading, whereas American parents viewed positive emotions during joint book reading as more important than the other factors. Taiwanese maternal reading belief inventory scores significantly correlated with family income and maternal education (r = .18 and r = .10, respectively; p < .00) as well as with parent and child literacy‐related behaviours (r = .41 and r = .40, respectively; p < .00). Neither child age nor gender was associated with maternal reading belief scores (p >.05). Maternal education was associated with home literacy resources and child literacy behaviours (p < .05).