Signature Project: READ

Another signature project is READ.

Reading is the key to learning, and it is therefore important to strengthen children's reading skills. Here, the parents are an important resource. The project READ shows that children's reading skills are lifted if parents are given guidance on how they can read with their children. It is not only important that parents read on a regular basis with their children in the home, but also how they read with them.

The basic intervention in READ consists of a package of books, as well as guidance for parents on how they can ask questions before, during and after reading, so that they help their children to read actively and to get a better understanding of the text. The parents also learn that all children are able to develop their literacy skills if they practise, and that it is important to encourage the child and to praise the child's efforts instead of correcting the child's mistakes. The parental supervision material has been translated into nine languages.

The basic intervention has been tested in a randomised controlled trial among 1500 children aged 8-9 years in Aarhus municipality. The results showed that when the parents were given supervision to read together with their children, the children improved their reading age in just two months, with the equivalent of four months of reading skills compared to the control group. In families where the parents, at the beginning of the experiment, perceived their children's reading skills as fixed, the increase was even up to six months. Children of parents with limited education or ethnic backgrounds other than Danish had at least as much benefit from the supervision as the average ethnic Danish child.

In later READ projects, the target group for READ has been extended to include 8-9 year-olds across the country, children between the age of 3 and 6 as well as children who have been placed out of home.

The intervention has also been developed to include an app which will help parents become more persistent with reading.

VIDEO: Help your child become a better reader (https://positiveparentingnews.org/news-reports/help-your-child-become-a-better-reader/)

Below you can read more about our READ interventions in Danish.