Executive Summary
The evaluation updates an evaluation undertaken in 2023. It focuses on the feedback from families, whānau and providers involved with the Storytime Foundation (Storytime), First 1000 Days programme, delivered nationally.
Method
The evaluation is undertaken in three parts:
- A literature review (appended) in which the evidence of the impact of reading to infants is summarised
- An overview of feedback from families
- In-depth interviews with 28 providers and online feedback from a further 12 providers in 2023 to determine:
- whether the move to online enrolment is helpful to providers,
- if the families and whānau targeted by Storytime are receiving the programme
- what is working well,
- any challenges, and
- to look at the impact the Storytime programme is having on families and whānau.
- Updated online feedback from a further 20 providers in 2024, focusing on the electronic enrolment process and the bilingual books.
Literature scan
There is strong evidence to support reading to babies. A review of the literature shows that reading from the earliest age enhances early language comprehension, expressive language skills, listening and speaking abilities, and fosters a lifelong enjoyment of books and reading. It also helps children understand their world (Crain-Thoreson and Dale, 1992; Weinberger, 1996, as cited in McCoy and Cole, 2011: 6).
Kalb and van Ours (2012) found a direct causal relationship between early childhood reading and improved educational outcomes, independent of parental income, education level, or cultural background. Kalb and van Ours (2012) found the relationship between early childhood reading and improved educational attainment to be “a direct causal effect from reading to children at a young age and their future schooling outcomes regardless of parental income, education level or cultural background”.
The OECD identifies reading for pleasure as a critical predictor of a child’s future success, even more significant than socio-economic background (OECD, 2002).
Russell et al. (2022) too, in their analysis of data from Growing Up in New Zealand—a large, nationally representative cohort—found that daily parent-infant reading was the only modifiable predictor of ‘flourishing’ developmental health. They advocated for promoting ‘nurturing care’ strategies to families, including gifting books directly to infants, a widely used approach that has been shown to improve multiple developmental outcomes among infants from disadvantaged communities (O’Farrelly et al. 2018).
The protective power of reading can be explained by neuroscientific research. Reading to infants helps to develop the brain, even for those experiencing adversity. The Growing Up in New Zealand study, for example, found that children exposed to multiple risk factors, including poverty, are more likely to experience poor health, educational, and behavioural outcomes during their preschool years (Woodley, 2017). However, Woodley (2017) and researchers from the Center on the Developing Child (2010) found that even when faced with severe stress, hardship, and adversity, some children and young people do well, beating the odds.
The Centre on the Developing Child (2010) data showed that responsive adult relationships based on ‘give and take’ or ‘serve and return’ interactions—where the adult responds to the child and the interactions are individualised to the child’s personality, interests, and capabilities—is a powerful protective factor, even protecting against toxic levels of stress. These protective ‘serve and return’ interactions are the very interactions which occur when singing to children, reading to children, telling them stories, or replying to children’s questions (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2004). Moreover, these interactions help to strengthen executive function, the brain domain responsible for planning, strategising, and supporting learning.
Neuroscientists have found that reading, and reading to children, not only helps to build the brain, it can help reduce the stress response in both adults and children, having a calming effect (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2004).