Bookstart Around the World 1
Bookstart Around the World 4. Overview In this se
ction, we describe the material that has been collected about bookgifting programmes. 4.1 What literature is available? The study of language development in children stretches across several fields of research and disciplines, which can make it difficult to gain an overall view. Based on this overview of current knowledge, some observations can be made about what is studied and evaluated with regards to bookgifting programmes. First and foremost, it can be established that there is a growing number of studies on the effectiveness of bookgifting programmes. Research on early literacy and family literacy is based on sociocultural perspectives, and has therefore traditionally been studied using ethnographic observations in the home (see, e.g., Fast, 2007 and Taylor via Fast, 2007). An important part in adapting and expanding bookgifting programmes has been to also evaluate their effectiveness. In recent times, however, it has become increasingly common to make various kinds of measurements to evaluate and quantify the effects the programmes have had by studying participating children and families. Needlman (2004) describes the questions for evaluation of the Reach Out and Read programme as a chain of inquiries that need to be answered, the last of which is of greatest interest but also the most difficult to answer. The first is perhaps the simplest to answer, and thus also the most researched. The chain of evaluation questions is described using four questions (Needlman, 2004): Do the interventions of bookgifting programmes lead to: • changes in the attitudes of parents with regards to language activities in the home? • an increase in language activities (such as reading aloud) and exposure to books in the home? • an improvement in language development in young children? • fewer children having problems with reading and writing at school? It is also common for the effectiveness of a programme or project to be evaluated according to interviews with participating practitioners. Observational studies for learning more about the interactions between children, their parents and Bookstart practitioners are also conducted, which is more akin to the way that Taylor or Fast study early and family literacy. In the United States, a lot of research focuses on the paediatric effects of Reach Out and Read. Given the research tradition in medicine, these studies are often quantitative in nature, where RCT (Randomised Controlled Trials) or quasiexperiments are common ways of isolating and measuring the effect of an intervention; that is, that two groups are compared, one of which receives an ‘intervention’ (in this case, free books during a medical checkup) whilst the second group does not receive it. This has, of course, also been done elsewhere, such as in the United Kingdom (Wade and Moore) and the Netherlands (Berg). Based on interviews and searches performed for this overview, Swedish research on language development in young children appears to be centred on pedagogy and is intricately linked to preschools. The previous focus on the role of the family for a child’s language development no longer appears to be as strong. There are, however, several research projects following up local Bookstart projects, and the completed results of two of these are presented in this overview. The research conducted is thus close to practice and is based on the activities included in the programmes. These studies also mainly examine the qualitative aspects of language development and bookgifting programmes rather than measuring the effects, as is the case with Reach Out and Read, for example. There are also isolated studies within the political science discipline from the Taiwanese Bookstart programme. In this case, the spread of Bookstart as a programme and policy has been studied. 23/52