Study title

In a pre-registered cluster randomised controlled trial, 85 lower SES families and their 3- to 4-year old children from 10 different preschools were randomly allocated to take part in The Reader’s Shared Reading programme (intervention) or an existing ‘Story Time’ group at a library (control), once a week for eight weeks. Three outcome measures were assessed at baseline and immediately post-intervention: (i) children's language, (ii) caregivers' attitudes to reading, and (iii) caregivers' behaviours during naturalistic book reading. The current study is part of a wider multi-disciplinary multi-institutional project called ‘How to promote children's language development using family-based shared book reading’. The aim of the project as a whole is to determine how shared reading promotes child language development and use this knowledge to make it an effective language boosting tool for children across the whole socio-economic spectrum. Shared reading interventions have the potential to impact positively on preschool children’s language development and on their caregiver’s attitudes/behaviours towards reading. However, a number of barriers may discourage families from participating or engaging with these interventions, particularly families from lower socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds. We investigated how families from lower SES backgrounds responded to an intervention designed to overcome these barriers by, in particular, emphasising the enjoyment of reading, rather than its educational value. 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...