Can Technology Bridge the Gap Between Home and School? Evaluation of a Video-Based Parent Engagement Program for Low-Income Prekindergarten Classrooms
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Date
2019-01-01
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Department
Psychology
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Psychology
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Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan thorugh a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
Abstract
ReadyRosie is a publicly available family engagement program that sends parents video examples of activities to promote school readiness at home. Hundreds of schools are using ReadyRosie. However, little evidence of the program's effectiveness currently exists. This study evaluated the accessibility, adoption, acceptability, and effectiveness of ReadyRosie in families of pre-k students (N = 112 parents; 75% African American; 98% mothers) from six low-income urban schools. Parents in the implementation group received ReadyRosie for 3 months. Parents completed surveys about their experiences with the program and their home engagement at pre- and post-implementation. Teachers rated children's math and language skills using the Early Learning Assessment (ELA). Parents reported that they had access to the technology necessary to use the program. However, less than half of the parents in the implementing group (n = 29 parents) signed up to receive ReadyRosie videos via text message or email. Most parents who used the program reported that the videos were age appropriate, easy to replicate, enjoyable for children, and easy to fit into a daily routine. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed no effects of the program on parents' activity engagement or children's math and language skills. However, multiple regressions showed that the number of videos parents viewed significantly predicted gains in their engagement in home literacy activities and marginally predicted gains in children's language scores. These results suggest that ReadyRosie might have small positive effects on parents' engagement in home learning activities. However, low sign-up rates severely reduced sample sizes for quantitative analyses. Thus, the results of this study should be interpreted with caution. I offer suggestions for implementation and continued evaluation of ReadyRosie and other tech-based programs.