Can Babies Learn to Read? A Randomized Controlled Trial of Baby Media

• In Event: The Impact of Multimedia on Early Literacy Development and Essential Skills

Abstract

Purpose. There has been an explosion of new media targeted to babies in recent years. Ignited by the 1995 release of Brainy Baby, followed by a deluge of other educational media specially marketed to families of infants and toddlers has become big business. A substantial proportion of these new media claim to promote babies’ reading development. Despite great skepticism among researchers and practitioners, recent research indicates that 40% of mothers of young children believe that their infants and toddlers are learning from baby media. This study was designed to examine the effects of baby media on children’s reading development.

Method. We conducted a year-long randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a sample of 117 infants, averaging 14-months of age, randomly assigned to treatment or control. The distribution of infants in each condition did not vary across demographic characteristics (all p’s > .05). Families in the treatment group received the intervention, a best-selling baby media product. The intervention was comprised of five volumes that include a specific number of words to be learned, ranging from 20 to 27 words, for total of 120 words. Each volume included a DVD, word cards, picture cards, and a picture book. Fidelity to treatment was measured bi-weekly.

We used 10 eye-tracking tasks over a year to examine four phases of reading development (Ehri, 2002): (1) pre-alphabetic, involving visual and contextual connections; (2) partial alphabetic, making connections between some salient letters and sounds, (3) full alphabetic, involving complete connections between graphemes and phonemes, and (4) consolidated alphabetic, when reading becomes fluent and automatic. These gaze-based measures allowed us to tap visual preferences for orthographic knowledge, and other related reading skills that might otherwise not be recognized in measures that require overt demonstrations (e.g. physical actions or verbal responses).

Results. Results indicated that babies did not learn to read. In total, out of 15 different measures of early reading skills, there were 15 null findings. We saw no evidence for the effects on conventional reading, as indicated in promotional websites or on any of pre-alphabetic or partial alphabetic phases of reading. Following a more intensive dosage than previous studies, there were no effects of the intervention on children’s speech processing efficiency, word learning skills, phonological processing, orthographic knowledge, letter recognition, sight word reading, or reading with meaning. Based on exit interviews and parent report of target word learning), however, there was the belief among parents that their babies’ were learning to read, and that their children had benefited from the program in their expressive vocabulary development.

Significance. Program developers’ may be preying on parents’ wishes and beliefs regarding their child’s potential precocity and not on the reality of what constitutes meaningful learning. Although we cannot say with full assurance that infants at this age cannot learn printed words, we can confidently say that they did not learn printed words from baby media.

Authors

• Susan B. Neuman, New York University

• Ashley Pinkham, University of Michigan

• Gabrielle Strouse

• Tanya Kaefer, Lakehead University