Parents are their child’s first and most important teacher. Presented here are the results of

a new, yearlong intervention, Ready to Read Home Visitation, developed and implemented by the Columbus

Metropolitan Library in Columbus, Ohio. The program is designed to help economically disadvantaged parents

with young children (ages birth-5) in 6 target communities become “first teachers” of the foundational literacy

skills their children need for kindergarten. The program, launched in January 2014, employs a multiple-touch

model of 12 monthly home visits focused on book lessons. Staff teach parents lessons targeted around a

featured book so parents gain new strategies for

reading aloud and for sharing literacy related

activities based on 4 specific literacy skills:

phonological awareness, print knowledge, narrative

skills and vocabulary.

Evaluation of the intervention was conducted by

Mihaiela R. Gugiu, Ph.D., Crane Center for Early

Childhood Research and Policy at The Ohio State

University. Assessments used to measure changes in

parent and child knowledge included: (1) Get Ready

to Read! (GRTR) 25 questions designed to measure

children’s pre-literacy abilities in the areas of print

and book knowledge, phonological awareness and

phonics, (2) Home Literacy Environment (HLE)

Checklist used to assess the degree to which

children’s home environments were conducive to

educational/literacy activities; and (3) Parent

Progress Checklist (PPC) used to assess parents’

literacy behavior.

IMPROVING EARLY LITERACY SKILLSSarah Mackey, M.L.S. • Kathy Shahbodaghi, M.L.S.

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PARENT DEMOGRAPHICS

Between January 2014 and February 2015, a total of 397 adult participants were enrolled in the Ready to Read

program. Of those 397 participants, 68% were minorities (47.2 African American, 20.7 Hispanic/Latino). Most of

the participants were female (except for 11), and more than half were single mothers. Over 62% of participants had

only a high school education or below (including 6.9% with an 8th grade education or below). This data indicates

the program did indeed serve the target audience of at-risk families, retaining 60% of the participants.

HLE scores reveal that parental behaviors and attitudes toward encouraging learning and teaching increased

significantly while there was a large improvement in the educational materials in their homes. Remarkable

improvements in parental literacy behavior were also measured by the PPC. Given the at-risk population, the

ability to engage parents in a meaningful manner and to motivate them to continue with the program is a

notable accomplishment.

CHILDREN’S DEMOGRAPHICS

A total of 548 children with an average age of 35 months were

enrolled in the program between January 2014 to February 2015.

Most of the children in the program were preschoolers (45.12%),

followed by toddlers (31%) and infants (24%). (For this study,

data were not available to measure changes in abilities of infants

and toddlers.) The breakdown of the preschool sample by

race/ethnicity was similar to the adult participants, and just

slightly over half was represented by boys. A quarter of the

children (25.4%) spoke Spanish as their primary language.

Seventy five percent of the children in the program were not enrolled in any early childhood education program,

such as daycare or preschool, Head Start, or public Pre-K program.

RESULTS

During this evaluation period, 67 preschoolers were enrolled in the program and had assessments at baseline and

6th month visit using the GRTR assessment while 24 were assessed a third time at 12 month visit. Preschoolers

made significant growth on the GRTR assessment over the course of the year with an increase of 24.6% in

pre-literacy knowledge. In addition, in order to assess the efficacy of the program as compared to other early

education programs, a comparison was made with similar children enrolled in preschool who were assessed with

the GRTR at 6 month intervals. This revealed the study children performed almost as well as the comparison

children; or in other words, study children made similar gains to children receiving daily treatment in preschool.

Evaluation shows this home visitation program significantly improved parental knowledge of and ability to initiate

early literacy behaviors with their children, increased the quantity of educational materials in homes and increased

children’s pre-literacy knowledge. These results, therefore, indicate the children will be more ready for

kindergarten and formal reading instruction. This is particularly noteworthy given that they were achieved during

the program’s first year of implementation.

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SECOND-YEAR GOALS

Content and Evaluation:

• To broaden and deepen the evaluation, include infant and

toddler data in future evaluations to obtain a more

comprehensive picture of how the program performs overall.

• To increase retention of at-risk families, pursue a qualitative

study of participants who withdrew from the program so as

to better understand the reasons for which they were not

retained and, potentially, identify alternative strategies for

long-term engagement in the program.

Scale:

• Create separate Ready for K classes in target branches. Scheduled on a consistent basis that is responsive to

the schedules of families in poverty, classes will cover the basic concepts a child needs to have mastered at

the start of Kindergarten and will serve as an alternative for families who cannot adhere to schedule demands

of home visitation.

• Investigate and implement additional avenues for parents to participate in Ready for K using supplemental

technology: digital reminders, online social support groups, virtual learning spaces for parents.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR LIBRARY LEADERS

• Library staff can effectively use standardized assessments (tools normally reserved for the education

field) to measure changes in children’s learning and performance, which serve as a benchmark for

program outcomes.

• Public libraries can play an important role in a community’s early learning ecosystem through a

home-based program to educate, coach, and demonstrate to parents and children the foundations of

early literacy.

FOR COMMUNITY LEADERS

• The program shows the value of a partnership between researchers and practitioners in a public library

setting. Taking full advantage of university researchers and science, library staff can implement

science-backed practices and use researchers’ recommendations to tweak and construct new iterations

of the program to experience rapid cycle learning that will improve program quality.

• Investments should be made in formally evaluated programs that show results in parent learning and

children’s kindergarten readiness. The evaluation presented here demonstrates this home visitation

program is one that warrants support.

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ADULT PARTICIPANTS DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

PARTICIPANTS PERCENTAGEAGE GROUP (IN YEARS)

12-17 16 4.0% 18-24 104 26.3% 25-30 120 30.3% 30-40 129 32.6% 40-50 21 5.3% over 50 6 1.5%

RACE/ETHNICITY African American 187 47.2% Caucasian 69 17.4% Hispanic/Latino 82 20.7% More than one race 16 4.1% African 32 8.1% Asian 6 1.5% Other 4 1.0%

SEX Male 11 2.8% Female 385 97.2%

MARITAL STATUS Single, never married 219 55.4% Married or domestic 147 37.2% partnership Widowed 2 0.8% Divorced/separated 26 6.6%

PRIMARY LANGUAGE SPOKEN AT HOME English 289 73.0% Spanish 81 20.5% Somali 8 2.0% French 1 0.2% Other 17 4.3%

EDUCATION No formal education 5 2.3% 8th grade or below 15 6.9% Some high school 56 25.9% High school diploma 59 27.4% Some college 73 33.8% Bachelor’s degree 7 3.2% Master’s degree 1 0.5% and beyond

PAGE 4

INCOME LEVEL OF PARTICIPANTS

Below

$4,9

99

$40,0

00-$59

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$5,0

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99

$60,0

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$10,0

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No R

espons

e

$20,0

00-$39

,999

10

20

0

30

40

23.4

9.011.4 11.4

4.1 3.3

37.3

columbuslibrary.org | 614-645-2275