'Tips-by-Text' program helps boost literacy in preschoolers
Stanford researchers have created a promising new text-messaging program that is designed to support parents in their efforts to teach their children their ABCs and prepare them for kindergarten. The program, called READY4K!, sends weekly cell phone texts to parents of preschoolers to give them bite-sized tips and easy, specific actions related to developing early literacy skills.
"Texting is the medium du jour," said Benjamin York, a doctoral student at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, who created the texting program with Professor Susanna Loeb. "That could change, but for now, it seems to be the best strategy."
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Study Says That Texting Reading Tips to Parents Improves Students' Literacy Skills
Who would have thought that texting—with all of its acronyms and emoticons—could actually improve a student's literacy skills?
But that's exactly what a new study of San Francisco preschoolers found. According to the study, released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, preschoolers whose parents received occasional text messages with reading tips performed better on literacy tests than their classmates whose parents did not receive those messages. Parents receiving those reading tips from the READY4K! text-messaging program also were more engaged in literacy activities at home and were more involved at their child's school as well.
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Text messaging program helps boost language skills in preschoolers, study finds
Stanford researchers found that the texts, which prompted parents to engage in literacy activities with their kids, had a positive impact on learning.
When it comes to spending quality family time together, text messaging doesn’t have to be a villain. It could be an enabler.
Stanford researchers have created a promising new text-messaging program that is designed to support parents in their efforts to teach their children their ABCs and prepare them for kindergarten. The program, called READY4K!, sends weekly cell phone texts to parents of preschoolers to give them bite-sized tips and easy, specific actions related to developing early literacy skills.
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There is great value in having a kid grow up to be bilingual, and even if your kid didn’t do quite as well on the standardized math test, maybe that’s worth it, Ben York said. In the end, they come out with this whole extra skill they wouldn’t otherwise have had.
Can text messages boost child literacy?
Think of a technology that could help boost educational outcomes and social mobility. Some of you might point to massive open online courses, MOOCs, which hold the promise of offering cheaper, web-based higher education to exponentially more students, or perhaps just to the Internet itself. But here’s a technology you probably didn’t think of—text messaging.
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