One Step at a Time: The Effects of an Early Literacy Text-Messaging Program for Parents of Preschoolers (READY4K!)

York, B. N., Loeb, S., & Doss, C. · 2019

grade Brctindependentreplicatednumbers spot-checked

Sample

~440 parents (original San Francisco RCT)

Population

Parents of preschoolers, San Francisco.

Design

Preregistered RCT with an active control — methodologically the cleanest parenting-nudge study available, and very low cost.

Key findings

The cleanest positive in the parenting literature: a preregistered RCT with an ACTIVE control showing +0.11 SD on standardised early literacy (+0.31 for children starting behind) from text-message nudges alone. Caveat: no follow-up beyond 8 months exists.

Counterfactual

ACTIVE/placebo control — parents received a small number of general-information texts.

Genetic confound

RCT with active control.

Replication notes

Scaled replications report larger samples; no long-run follow-up exists, so durability is unknown and should be presumed to follow the usual fadeout base rate.

Cost

Text messages — among the cheapest interventions in the entire database.

DOI / URL

10.3368/jhr.54.3.0517-8756R

Cite

BibTeX RIS

Effects

Outcome	Metric	Value	Measure	Timing	Vs	Horizon	Class
Parent home literacy activities	SD	+0.22 to +0.34	researcher-designed	end-of-treatment	active-alternative	end-of-treatment	behaviour
Child early literacy (PALS), overall	SD	~+0.11	standardized	end-of-treatment	active-alternative	end-of-treatment	domain-skill
Child early literacy, lower half of baseline skill	SD	+0.31	standardized	end-of-treatment	active-alternative	end-of-treatment	domain-skill
Persistence beyond 8 months	follow-up	NOT MEASURED — no later follow-up exists	unknown	end-of-treatment	active-alternative	end-of-treatment	behaviour

Cited by

The early home environment — what parents can and cannot causally movemixedconf: highgc: low
The parent as instructor — what survives when the person teaching is the person who raised the childmixedconf: mediumgc: medium