Poster #242 - Can technology bridge the gap between home and school? An evaluation of the ReadyRosie program

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

Family engagement predicts early school readiness and later academic success (e.g. Fan & Chen, 2001). However, schools report great difficulty getting parents engaged, especially in low-income and minority communities. This apparent lack of family engagement is partly due to barriers to engagement, which put low-income and minority parents at a disadvantage for attending school events and communicating with teachers (Hornby & Lafaele, 2010; Pêna, 2000). However, it may also be due to the failure of schools to promote and recognize home-based engagement.

Teachers and administrators often focus on school-based engagement because it is easier to measure and promote (Lareau, 1989). Family engagement programs involving home-visiting are expensive and challenging to implement. Programs using text-messages and video-clips may be a solution to this problem. They have been successful in increasing parent engagement and child achievement (Horowitz et al., 2006; Sanders et al., 2012) and are more cost and time-efficient. ReadyRosie is a publically available parent engagement program that helps educators connect with families by sending video-examples of activities to promote school readiness at home. Hundreds of schools are using ReadyRosie nationally. However, little evidence of effectiveness or accessibility exists.

This study evaluated the effectiveness and accessibility of ReadyRosie in six low-income urban preschools. Our main research questions were: (1) How accessible is this technology-based program for low-income parents? (2) Do families who participate in ReadyRosie experience greater gains in engagement or child achievement than controls? and (3) Do families and teachers think the program is helpful? Families in implementing schools who agreed to participate (N = 61) received ReadyRosie for 3 months. Children were assessed on academic and social skills and parents completed surveys at pre- and post-implementation.

Parents (N = 112; 75% African American; 98% Mothers) reported access to the technology necessary to use ReadyRosie and were open to receiving electronic communication from schools (60% had computers; 94% had smartphones; 75% were open to text and email communication). Of parents who agreed to try the program, 50% completed the sign-up process and 44% watched at least one video. Of parents who watched videos, 59% said they did the suggested activities. Almost all parents agreed or strongly agreed that the activities were age appropriate (100%), easy to replicate (100%), enjoyable for children (96%), and easy to incorporate in a daily routine (92%). Most (60%) also said watching the videos changed their home practices. Interestingly however, preliminary analyses show that parents in the intervention group increased the frequency of only one specific activity: talking about cooking (See tables 1 & 2). Overall frequency of activity engagement did not increase significantly in implementing schools relative to controls. Although parents liked the program and believed it was helpful, this study lends little support for its effectiveness. Our poster will examine these data and present additional findings regarding children’s school readiness scores. We will discuss how schools can bolster the effectiveness of programs like ReadyRosie and evaluate the pros and cons of using such tech based programs over other in-person methods of family engagement.

Group Authors

The Ready At Five Team

Authors

• Cassandra Lynn Simons, UMBC
  Presenting Author

• Susan Sonnenschein, UMBC
  Non-Presenting Author