Do Book Giveaway Programs Promote the Home Literacy Environment and Children’s Literacy-Related Behavior and Skills?

Merel de Bondt, Ingrid A. Willenberg, Adriana G. Bus

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Book giveaway programs provide free books to families with infants to encourage caregivers to begin reading to their children during infancy. This meta-analysis of 44 studies retrieved from 43 articles tests the effects of three major book giveaway programs: Bookstart (n = 11), Reach Out and Read (n = 18), and Imagination Library (n = 15). Effect sizes were aggregated within two domains—home literacy environment and literacy-related behavior and skills—before being averaged across studies. The findings corroborate the assumption that book giveaway programs promote children’s home literacy environment (d = 0.31, 95% CI [0.23, 0.38], k = 30), which subsequently results in more interest in reading and children scoring higher on measures of literacy-related skills prior to and during the early years of school (d = 0.29, 95% CI [0.23, 0.35], k = 23).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)349-375
Number of pages27
JournalReview of Educational Research
Volume90
Issue number3
Early online date13 May 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2020

Funding

This research was supported by a Spinoza award from The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to Marinus H. van IJzendoorn and a grant to investigate effects of Bookstart from the Dutch Reading Foundation (Stichting Lezen) to Adriana G. Bus.

Keywords

  • book giveaway programs
  • Bookstart
  • Imagination Library
  • meta-analysis
  • Reach Out and Read

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