Bookstart Around the World 1
Bookstart Around the World 4.2.3 The impact of bo
okgifting programmes on language development in children In their study, Hight et al. (2000) found that children who participated in Reach Out and Read later had better results from language tests (receptive and expressive vocabulary). Based on a statistical analysis, they reason that this effect is most likely due to the fact that Reach Out and Read has influenced participating parents to read more with their children, which, in turn, leads to better results in language tests. One particularly interesting study worth mentioning in this context – Theriot et al. (2003) – examined whether medical checkups at paediatric healthcare centres that include book giveaways and guidance affect language development in children (receptive and expressive vocabulary). They found that, not only is there a clear connection between Reach Out and Read medical checkups and language development, but that this connection also shows evidence of a socalled doseeffect. This means that the more visits that are made with book gifts, the more books parents bought themselves, and the better the children performed in language tests. Such a dose-effect is also discussed in a previous study (Mendelsohn et al., 2001). The results from that study showed that children who participated in the Reach Out and Read programme demonstrated that they had a sixmonth lead in their receptive vocabulary and a threemonth lead in their expressive vocabulary compared with children who did not participate in the programme. The metaanalysis conducted by Bondt, Willenberg and Bus (2020) describes in a similar spirit how their findings support a socalled snowball effect as a consequence of the bookgifting programmes, as described in the following quote: ‘The findings corroborate the assumption that book giveaways promote family book reading routines, which consequently results in children scoring higher on measures of children’s literacy-related behaviour and skills. The findings thus support the theory that the early initiation of book reading promoted by book give away programs generates a “snowball effect”.’ (Bondt, Willeberg & Bus, 2020: 366). There is thus an abundance of evidence supporting the fact that bookgifting programmes contribute to bolstering language development in children in the long term. Are there only studies that indicate that bookgifting programmes are effective? No, other results have also been found that are important to highlight. One study on the effects of Reach Out and Read even shows negative results on family reading habits (Fortman via Needlman and Silverstein, 2004). However, problems with the control groups were reported in this study, which makes the results difficult to interpret. The study was also unusual in that its sample group consisted primarily of middleclass families, unlike many of the other studies. In their study of Imagination Library, Thompson et al. (2017) found evidence of only minor effects on language activities in participating families. Nor did the researchers find any beneficial effects for participating children in terms of language development in later measurements. It should be noted that Imagination Library is a bookgifting programme that, unlike Bookstart and Reach Out and Read, does not include any contact or guidance from professionals; the books are sent to families by mail. According to the authors, this could explain the absence of positive effects. This is also valuable insight showing that programmes for promoting reading need qualitative interventions for families if they are to prove effective. Another desired effect from bookgifting programmes is for families to visit libraries to a greater extent. However, it appears to be unclear as to whether this is the case. There are studies that exemplify both negative (Wade & Moore, 1998) and positive links to library visits (Canfield et al., 2018). The fact that library visits decreased in the short term was explained by Wade and Moore (1998) as being due to a reduced need for borrowing books from the library after receiving free books. They therefore emphasise that longerterm measurements are needed in order to be able to establish any definite correlations. 4.3 The design of bookgifting programmes In this section, we describe how bookgifting programmes can be designed so as to have the greatest impact and to influence families as much as possible. We then discuss some studies that describe the relationship of bookgifting programmes with target groups and targeted initiatives. 26/52