Story At A Glance
- Studies show that reading to kids helps them learn and develop their intellect, but many parents say they are too busy.
- New apps that send text message reminders can help — one study showed that after such nudges parents read twice as many books to their kids.
- The apps can suggest other helpful parenting advice as well.
Once, when I was between jobs, I’d sit in a school hallway helping other people’s kids learn to read. At first it was tedious, but thanks to my partner nudging me out the door every morning it morphed into something pretty terrific: Watching a long-struggling student’s joy and excitement at beginning to master reading.
“It’s all about the nudge,” says Philip Oreopoulos of the University of Toronto about using text messages to encourage parents to read to their children. “Reading is one of the best ways to stimulate a child’s development.”
Unfortunately, many parents are often too busy, preoccupied or uncomfortable with reading. This is particularly true for lower-income parents, those with limited education or when English is a second language. As a rule, people often put off something they don’t like to do even if they know it’s important, says Oreopoulos, who specializes in applying behavioral economics to education and child development.
Nudges in the form of text messages can help overcome this common tendency. Nudges are subtle cues or hints that push you to make a certain decision without forcing you to. For example, if grocery stores put bananas instead of candy bars at the checkouts, then you’d likely eat more bananas.
Reading reminders
In one study, parents from eight preschools in Chicago were invited to borrow an electronic tablet with a library of more than 500 children’s books. Each week, they received several text message reminders along with feedback on the actual amount of reading time that was recorded by the tablet each week. At the end of six weeks parents receiving the texted reminders — the nudges — were reading twice as many books to their children than those who did not receive the texts.
“After a busy day it’s easy to forget or put off the reading, but these reminders make it easier to remember,” said Oreopoulos, one of the study co-authors. While it’s harder to nudge people into a new habit, a follow-up months after the program ended showed the increased levels of reading continued.
Parental decision making is a new field of behavioral science that builds on work in the science of health decision making. In recent years, a variety of text messaging programs have helped people quit smoking, exercise more, take their medications and stick to treatment programs.
Nudging people with text messages has enormous potential because nearly every adult in America has a phone, and 98 percent of all texts are opened, says Maya Sussman, a director at the ParentPowered Public Benefit Corporation based in San Francisco. Sussman works on ParentPowered’s Ready4K text message program that provides parents with fun facts, easy tips and activities that go well beyond reading to help promote their children’s physical, intellectual and emotional development.
Simple tips
More than 200,000 families with newborns to kids in fourth grade get text messages from Ready4K three times a week. Monday’s text is a fun fact. Wednesday’s suggests an activity related to that fact and Friday is a message of encouragement. Each is written in a short, 160-character message, which Sussman says is quite a challenge to do.
“Our suggested activities fit into a parent’s daily routine, such as helping a child count their steps to the bus,” she said.
One mom in the program appreciated the simple tips like giving a toddler a five-minute warning before ending playtime to help them prepare for transitions. “I don’t know what I don’t know,” she told Sussman during a follow-up interview. Another mom with four daughters never thought of the grocery store as a place for her children to learn to read, count or compare prices. “Kids don’t come with instructions, so I really appreciate the help,” she told Sussman.
Ready4K is largely based on research done at Stanford University’s Center for Education Policy Analysis. The program is curriculum based in that it delivers nudges appropriate to the age and development of a child. It operates through head-start agencies and pre-school programs as well as school boards and districts. Grants are also available for communities in need to bring Ready4K to families for up to three years.
“The idea is help parents be great parents by helping them to make the most of every day with their kids,” said Sussman. It includes tips on parental self-care, such as taking a moment to reflect on the week. Some families have participated for the entire five years the program has been running.
Research has shown the Ready4K program increases family engagement at home and school and increases child learning by two to three months over the course of a school year. A new pilot program that personalizes the program based on assessments of each child’s development has brought even better results.
One of the big behavioral science insights into child development is for parents to talk or engage with their children all the time, even if they’re too young to talk back, said Oreopoulos. “There are constant opportunities to stimulate interest in your child if you look for them.”
Published on Nov 12,2019