One Step at a Time: The Effects of an Early Literacy Text Messaging Program for Parents of Preschoolers

Last registered on October 28, 2014

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
One Step at a Time: The Effects of an Early Literacy Text Messaging Program for Parents of Preschoolers
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000536
Initial registration date
October 28, 2014

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
October 28, 2014, 3:17 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Stanford University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Stanford University

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2013-07-27
End date
2014-07-10
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Substantial systematic differences exist in children’s home learning experiences. The few existing parenting programs that have shown promise often are not widely accessible, either due to the demands they place on parents’ time and effort or cost. In this study, we evaluate the effects of READY4K!, a text messaging program for parents of preschoolers designed to help them support their children’s literacy development. The program targets the behavioral barriers to good parenting by breaking down the complexity of parenting into small steps that are easy-to-achieve and providing continuous support for an entire school year. We find that READY4K! positively affected the extent to which parents engaged in home literacy activities with their children by 0.22 to 0.34 standard deviations, as well as parental involvement at school by 0.13 to 0.19 standard deviations. Increases in parental activity at home and school translated into student learning gains in some areas of early literacy, ranging from approximately 0.21 to 0.34 standard deviations. The widespread use, low cost, and ease of scalability of text messaging make texting an attractive approach to supporting parenting practices.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Loeb, Susanna and Benjamin York. 2014. "One Step at a Time: The Effects of an Early Literacy Text Messaging Program for Parents of Preschoolers." AEA RCT Registry. October 28. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.536-1.0
Former Citation
Loeb, Susanna and Benjamin York. 2014. "One Step at a Time: The Effects of an Early Literacy Text Messaging Program for Parents of Preschoolers." AEA RCT Registry. October 28. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/536/history/2993
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
READY4K! is an eight-month long text messaging program for parents of four year olds designed to help them support their children’s literacy development. It draws on research on literacy development (e.g., Lonigan & Shanahan, 2009), parenting practices (e.g., Reese, Sparks & Leyva, 2010), and behavior change strategies (e.g., Abraham & Michie, 2008). The program is linked to the California Preschool Learning Foundations and is structured as a spiral curriculum – it starts simple and gets progressively more advanced over time, and topics are re-introduced throughout the year for reinforcement. For example, the first week of the program focuses on parent-child conversations, while the last few weeks concentrate on developing high quality parent-child book reading routines (see Appendix A for a description of the text development process). READY4K! is available in English, Spanish, and Chinese.

In the present study, parents who were randomly assigned to the treatment group received three READY4K! texts messages each week during the school year about a particular early literacy skill or set of skills (starting in October and ending in May). On Mondays, they received “FACT” texts, designed to generate buy in by highlighting the importance of a particular skill or set of skills. On Wednesdays, they received “TIP” texts, designed to maximize parents’ self-efficacy in supporting their children’s literacy development by minimizing the costs associated with adopting beneficial practices. These texts include short, simple, and highly-specific activities for parents to do with their children. On Fridays, parents received “GROWTH” texts, which provide encouragement and reinforcement and extend the tips from Wednesdays. The following example week of texts focuses on beginning sound awareness:
FACT: Beginning word sounds are essential for reading. You can help your child learn to read by saying the beginning sound of words. “Read” starts w/ “rrr.”
TIP: Say two words to your child that start with the same sound, like happy & healthy. Ask: can you hear the “hhh” sound in happy & healthy?
GROWTH: By saying beginning word sounds, like “ttt” in taco & tomato, you’re preparing your child 4K. Now, have your child make the “ttt” sound.

Overall, READY4K! covers a wide range of early literacy skills and related parenting practices, including: alphabet knowledge, letter sounds, beginning sound awareness, rhyme awareness, nursery rhyme awareness, name writing, concepts of print, story comprehension, vocabulary development, elaborative reminiscing, parent-child conversations, listening to and singing songs, and establishing high-quality parent-child book reading routines.

Throughout the program, text messages emphasized parental involvement at the school. The following text, which we sent during a week about concepts of print, is one example of how we addressed parental involvement:
TIP: Ask the teacher about your child’s knowledge of concepts of print. Concepts of print include knowing how book are organized & that words have meaning.

We also included messages about SFUSD’s Raising A Reader (RAR) program, which regularly sends books home to children in both the treatment and control group. In particular, we coupled reading activity texts with texts about RAR. We worried that families without their children’s books would not uptake suggested reading activities. Highlighting the district’s book program was one way to address this concern:
TIP: Use the RAR red book bag to build your routine. Let your child hold the book. Ask what it is about. Follow the words with your finger as your read.

To the extent possible, READY4K! texts build on activities that parents already do with their children. By adding to pre-existing family routines, the program’s messages further reduce the costs of adopting good home literacy practices – parents do not have to take up a new activity they just have to make the most of something that they already do with their children. For example, the following “spiral” week of texts – which covers a wide range of early literacy skills including answering open-ended questions, concepts of print, letter identification, letters sounds, and vocabulary building – focuses on making the most of bath time:
FACT: Bath time is great for teaching your child important skills for K. Start by asking your child: what are the things we need for bath time? Why?
TIP: When you’re bathing your child, point out the letters on the shampoo bottles. Ask your child to name them & tell you the sounds that they make.
GROWTH: By teaching at bath time, you’re preparing your child for K. Next time, ask questions about body parts. Where are your elbows? What do they do?

While parents in the treatment group received multiple READY4K! texts per week, parents in the control group received one placebo text about every two weeks during the 2013-14 school year. These messages generally pertained to the district’s kindergarten enrollment requirements or required vaccinations. Here are two examples:
READY4K: Students new to SFUSD are required to have a TB Skin Test. Children entering K need: 5 DTaP, 4 Polio, 3 Hepatitis B, 2 MMR and 1 Varicella vaccines.
READY4K: Immunization forms are available at any San Francisco Health Center & SFUSD’s Educational Placement Center at 555 Franklin St., Room 100.
Intervention Start Date
2013-09-30
Intervention End Date
2014-05-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Parents’ text messaging attitudes and behaviors, home literacy practices, and involvement at the school, as well as children’s early literacy skills.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
To assign families to treatment and control, we employed a multi-site person-level randomized controlled trial design, blocking on early education site (Spybrook et al., 2011). Within each site, we randomly selected half of the parents to join the treatment group and half to join the control group.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Individual.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
31 early education sites.
Sample size: planned number of observations
440 parents and their children.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
440 parents at 31 early education sites.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
To calculate the minimum detectable effect size (MDES), we used standard assumptions, including a statistical significance level of 0.05 and statistical power of 0.80. In prior unpublished work with SFUSD four year olds, we found that sites explain approximately 35 percent of the variation in spring test scores. We used this figure in our MDES estimation, and we also assumed that our robust set of pre-treatment covariates explains another 15 percent of the variation in outcomes. Based on these assumptions and our sample of 440 parents across 31 sites, we estimate that we can detect effects of approximately 0.20 standard deviations.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Stanford University Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2012-09-21
IRB Approval Number
Protocol ID #25613

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials