Prior randomised trials of book-gifting programmes have shown little evidence of effects on children's reading skills¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2014 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Of the few randomised controlled trials of book-gifting interventions that exist, most found no significant effects on literacy outcomes, with effects generally small when they occurred. → Maxwell et al. 2014

Evidence¶

Maxwell et al. 2014¶

Dr Bronwen Maxwell, Professor Paul Connolly, Sean Demack, Dr Liam O'Hare, Anna Stevens, Lucy Clague. (2014). Summer Active Reading Programme: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary. Education Endowment Foundation. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED581463

q2 · i? · causal · r2

Narrative review of prior book-gifting evaluations cited in the background section, including trials by Connolly, O'Hare & Mitchell (2012), Goldfield (2012), Demack and Stevens (2013), and O'Hare & Connolly (2014, d=0.19 on parental attitudes).

"Of the small number of robust evaluations that do exist, they have provided little evidence that these programmes lead to improvements in children’s reading skills."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• A prior US randomised trial of the underlying approach found small significant positive effects for First Grade but not Second Grade pupils — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• The Vocabulary Enrichment Full Programme showed no statistically significant impact on Year 7 pupils' reading ability in a pupil-randomised controlled trial — related
• The Paired Reading programme showed no evidence of impact on Year 7 and Year 9 pupils' overall reading ability in a cluster RCT — related
• Parent Involvement Improves Early Reading — related