Hesketh, Anne and Rowland, Caroline
(2020).
Shared book reading and the development of phonological awareness 2016-2018.
[Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex:
UK Data Service.
10.5255/UKDA-SN-853444
The most cost-effective way to tackle the root causes of many social and educational problems is to intervene early in children's lives, before the problems have had a chance to entrench. Key to this strategy is improving children's language development in the early years. Children who enter school with good language skills have better chances in school, better chances of entering higher education, and better economic success in adulthood.
Reading is very effective at boosting children's language. Children who read regularly with their parents or carers tend to learn language faster, enter school with a larger vocabulary of words and become more successful readers in school. Because of this, local authorities often commission services to promote family-based shared book reading (e.g. the Bookstart programme).
However, recent studies suggest that shared book reading interventions work less effectively for children from disadvantaged backgrounds than originally thought, particularly when their parents have lower levels of education. This means that there is a danger that the benefits of shared reading will be restricted to children from more affluent homes and not get through to those who need them most.
To solve this problem, we need to develop a better understanding of how reading interventions work, and of how parents use them. We need to identify what parents do and say when reading aloud with their children and why this makes reading so effective at boosting children's language. We need to find out whether differences in how parents read mean that parents from disadvantaged backgrounds use these language boosting behaviours less frequently. We need to determine how to design interventions that increase the use of these behaviours in all parents, especially those with lower levels of education. Then, once we have identified how reading interventions work, we need to determine how to help parents use them successfully in their daily lives.
The aim of this project is to determine how shared reading promotes child language development, and use this knowledge to make it an effective language boosting tool for children from all social and economic backgrounds. In Work Package 1, we will identify what language boosting behaviours parents use in shared reading, and will determine how parents from different social/economic backgrounds use these behaviours during shared reading. In Work Package 2, we will create four targeted interventions, each focussed on a particular language boosting behavior, and investigate how they are implemented by parents from different backgrounds, and how they affect children's language development. In Work Package 3, we will explore what influences parents' decisions to read or not to read with their children, in order to work out why parents may be unwilling to read with their children and to identify how to make reading a more enjoyable experience. We will also evaluate the benefits of a new intervention, designed by national charity The Reader Organisation, to promote reading for pleasure.
Across the project, we will study a range of language skills, covering the core language abilities that are essential for learning to read and write in school. We will produce one review article, 9 original research articles, 30 conference presentations, and activities for non-academic audiences at local and national level. We will also submit a Cochrane review on the effectiveness of shared reading interventions for language development. Our results will enable health professionals such as health visitors, early years educators such as nursery school teachers, and policy-makers in local and national government to design targeted, cost-effective interventions to improve the language of children between the ages of 0 and 5 years. The work addresses ESRC's strategic priorities Influencing Behaviour: Informing Interventions and A Vibrant and Fair Society.
Data description (abstract)
Shared book reading has been demonstrated to be an effective way to promote children’s language including preparation for literacy: children who are read to regularly, on average, enter school with better language skills and become more successful readers. However, evidence suggests that shared reading interventions are less effective for children from lower socio-economic background. One aspect of shared book reading that has not yet been investigated is its potential effect on phonological awareness (PA), an important skill in the early stages of phonics-based literacy development. The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of a shared reading intervention that emphasised the form of words (therefore targeting PA), and to explore its interaction with SES status.
Data creators: |
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Contributors: |
Name |
Affiliation |
ORCID (as URL) |
Barker Daphne |
Lancaster University |
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Hughes-Parry Emma |
Bangor University |
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Sponsors: |
Economic and Social Research Council
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Grant reference: |
ES/M003752/1
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Topic classification: |
Education Psychology
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Keywords: |
PHONOLOGY, AWARENESS, BOOK READERSHIP, READING (ACTIVITY), BOOKS, LITERACY, CHILDREN, SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN, LANGUAGE SKILLS, CHILD DEVELOPMENT, LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT, CARERS, PARENTS
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Project title: |
How to promote children's language development using family-based shared book reading (Short title: Promoting language development via shared reading)
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Grant holders: |
Caroline Rowland, Danielle Matthews, Josie Billington, Sofia Lampropoulou, Catherine Davies, Rachael Levy, Anne Hesketh, Thea Cameron-Faulkner
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Project dates: |
From | To |
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1 April 2015 | 3 August 2018 |
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Date published: |
09 Jul 2020 14:41
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Last modified: |
16 Jul 2020 15:27
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Collection period: |
Date from: | Date to: |
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21 January 2016 | 11 January 2018 |
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Geographical area: |
North-West England |
Country: |
United Kingdom |
Data collection method: |
The study is an educational intervention designed to promote caregiver emphasis on the form of words during shared book reading, and to establish whether the intervention had an impact on children's phonological awareness. Researchers visited the family home on one or two occasions to complete baseline assessments and deliver training, and on one further occasion, 6 weeks later, to carry out post-intervention assessment. Participants were families with a child aged 3 years 6 months to 4 years 8 months who agreed to participate. |
Observation unit: |
Individual, Household |
Kind of data: |
Numeric, Audio |
Type of data: |
Experimental data
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Resource language: |
English |
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Data sourcing, processing and preparation: |
All data was collected for this study and was prepared using Excel. Audio files are in flac format.
The audio data may only be accessed with the permission of the data creator or rights owner (contact Caroline Roland). Consent has been given by parents for it to be archived but it consists of unedited recordings in the home environment and may contain sensitive information or names of people and places.
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Rights owners: |
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Contact: |
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Notes on access: |
The Data Collection is available for download to users registered with the UK Data Service. All requests are subject to the permission of the data owner or his/her nominee. Please email the contact person for this data collection to request permission to access the data, explaining your reason for wanting access to the data, then contact our Access Helpdesk.
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Publisher: |
UK Data Service
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Last modified: |
16 Jul 2020 15:27
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