Fostering the language skills of children from low-educated families through parental book reading: an extended experimental study (2017)
Project leaders :
- Carlo BARONE (OSC-LIEPP, Sociology)
- Denis FOUGERE (CNRS-OSC-LIEPP, Economy)
- Agnès van ZANTEN (CNRS-OSC-LIEPP, Sociology)
Research team :
- Nathalie MAREC-BRETON (Université de Rennes, Psychology)
- Karine MARTEL (Université de Caen, Psychology)
This project obtained funding from LIEPP through the 2017 call for proposals.
This research project extends a previous research project funded by the LIEPP in 2016.
The former project aimed at testing by means of a randomised controlled trial whether an intervention that promotes parental book reading to the children can improve the language skills of the children and their attitudes towards reading. The intervention provided families with two books for free each week, as well as with information on the benefits of reading and suggestions to develop effective reading practices. This information was delivered using brochures, phone calls and text messages (see below for a more detailed description). We aimed at assessing whether this intervention affected: a) the receptive vocabulary skills of the children; b) the frequency of shared book reading; c) the enjoyment of reading activities of children and parents. Crucially, we can assess treatment heterogeneity related to parental education and immigrant background, as well as to a set of school-level characteristics to determine which specific targets benefit more from this intervention and which kind of schools are more effective in delivering it.
The intervention was delivered between February and May 2017. In this document, we will first document its successful implementation: the high internal and external validity of the study, the very positive reception on the side of school authorities and teachers, the large participation of parents & children and the high treatment fidelity, the network of academic and non-academic collaborations developed in these months, the interest of the media. Then we will argue that the current experimental design has some limitations that could be overcome in a second stage of this study: a) the current protocol assesses only the short-term effects of this intervention, while it would be important to assess its effects later in time; b) there are good reasons to develop a second intervention based on parental book reading to broaden the focus of the intervention, to enlarge the target outcomes and to improve its implementation on the basis of the lessons learnt this year. We argue that this second stage could rely on the expertise, materials and scale economies derived from the first year of experimentation and that, at the same time, it could extend the work of this first year following a cumulative logic of progressive refinement.
Research group recent events
- 6th edition of the workshop ‘Experimental research on social inequalities’
- L'impact des outils numériques sur les apprentissages des élèves - Évaluation du Plan numérique de 2015
- LIEPP seminar: "Les compétences prédictives de la réussite scolaire et du bien-être des enfants"
See all events from this Research Group
Publications of the Research Group
- Agnès VAN ZANTEN, Amelia LEGAVRE, Engineering access to higher education through higher education fairs- LIEPP Working Paper, n° 22, April 2014
- Nina GUYON, Elise HUILLERY, Choix d’orientation et origine sociale : mesurer et comprendre l’autocensure scolaire LIEPP Report décembre 2014
- Agnès VAN ZANTEN, Alice OLIVIER, Les stratégies statutaires des établissements d’enseignement supérieur. Une étude des « journées portes ouvertes » , LIEPP Working Paper n°40, novembre 2015
- Yann ALGAN, Elise HUILLERY, Nina GUYON, Comment lutter contre la violence et le harcèlement à l'école et au collège ? LIEPP Policy Brief n°19, juin 2015
- Laura Perna, Improving Higher Education of All Students: Lessons from the United States , LIEPP Working Paper n°48, February 2016
- Nina GUYON, Elise HUILLERY, Biased Aspirations and Social Inequality at School: Evidence from French Teenagers , LIEPP Working Paper, n°44, January 2016
- Nina GUYON, Elise HUILLERY, Track choice and socioeconomic origin: measuring and explaining academic inhibition , LIEPP Policy Brief n°23, february 2016
- Carlo BARONE, Antonio SCHIZZEROTTO, Giovanni Maria ABBIATI, Giulia ASSIRELLI, Gender, information barriers and fields of study choice: a field experiment , LIEPP Working Paper, n°63, January 2017
- Carlo BARONE, Denis FOUGERE, Clément PIN, La lecture partagée: un levier pour réduire les inégalités scolaires? LIEPP Policy Brief n°44, septembre 2019
- Carlo BARONE, Denis FOUGERE, Clément PIN, Social origins, shared book reading and language skills in early childhood LIEPP Working Paper n°93, octobre 2019
- Clément PIN, Evaluation du Plan de simplification pour l'enseignement supérieur et la recherche LIEPP Report octobre 2019
- Giulia ASSIRELLI, Carlo BARONE, Emilio Chambouleyron, Reka Vonnak Shared Book Reading Interventions and Children's Skills LIEPP Working Paper n°98, december 2019
- Giulia ASSIRELLI, Carlo BARONE, Emilio Chambouleyron, Reka Vonnak Shared Book Reading Interventions and Children's Skills LIEPP Working Paper n°98, december 2019
- Jérôme AUST, Ulrike LEPONT, Les LABEX réinventés les appropriations paradoxales d'un instrument d'action publique en biologie LIEPP Policy Brief, n°42, Juin 2019
- Béatrice BOUTCHENIK, Pauline GIVORD, Olivier MONSO, How do restrictive zoning and parental choices impact social diversity in schools? LIEPP Working Paper n°105, February 2020
- Laudine CARBUCCIA , Interventions to foster academic aspirations adjustment among disadvantaged and female students - A PRISMA systematic review of literature , LIEPP Working Paper n°114, Novembre 2020
- Clément PIN, Évaluation d'un plan national de simplification administrative. Le cas de l'enseignement supérieur et de la recherche LIEPP Policy Brief n°50, Mars 2021
- Marco OBERTI, Mathieu ROSSIGNOL-BRUNET, Elise TENRET, Pauline BARRAUD DE LAGERIE, Yannick SAVINA Reconfiguration du champ des formations en sciences humaines en Île-de-France : le poids de la sélection LIEPP Working Paper n°121, Juin 2021
- Pauline GIVORD, How age at school entry affects future educational and socioemotional outcomes: Evidence from PISA. LIEPP Working Paper n°120, Mai 2021
- Pauline GIVORD, Qu'est-ce qu'un bon lycée ? Questions de mesure LIEPP Policy Brief n°54, octobre 2021
- Bastian BETTHAUSER, Anders BACH-MORTENSEN, Per ENGZELL, A systematic review and meta-analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning LIEPP Working Paper n°134, May 2022
- Pauline GIVORD, Francesco AVVISATI The learning gain over one school year among 15-year-olds: An international comparison based on PISA Sciences Po LIEPP Working paper, July, 2022
- Laudine CARBUCCIA, Carlo BARONE, Coralie CHEVALLIER, Valentin THOUZEAU Unequal access to early childcare : What role do demand-side factors play ? A PRISMA systematic review LIEPP Working Paper n°138, 2023
- Olivier MONSO, Audrey FARGES Fréquenter l'internat à l'entrée du lycée a-t-il un impact sur la réussite scolaire ? Une évaluation sur les lycées publics de l'Éducation nationale LIEPP Working Paper n°141, 2023