The Psychological Impact of Interactive Story Reading

It is widely accepted that the experiences children encounter in their early years can have an enormous impact on the rest of their lives and can hugely influence their future prospects.

With this in mind Professor Helen Whiteley, Head of Edge Hill University's Department of Social and Psychological Sciences, is currently working with Sure Start and other children's centres throughout the North West to study the impact of interactive story reading with two-year-olds from deprived backgrounds.

Professor Whiteley explains more: "Evidence indicates that a background of socio-economic disadvantage leaves children vulnerable to poor language and literacy development, as well as educational underachievement generally. Early interactive story reading with these young children has the potential to help develop important pre-literacy skills, which will support their learning when they progress to school and may help to reduce this risk of underachievement." 

So far, over eighty children have been referred to the programme on the basis of multiple, high-risk factors, with each child being assessed on their receptive and expressive vocabulary, record of emergent language and a behavioural checklist.  This is undertaken both prior to and following completion of a twelve-week intervention programme where outreach workers support parents in engaging with interactive story reading.  The measures are repeated again after a further twelve weeks where time with the outreach support worker is reduced.

"Data indicates that many of the children begin the programme with little or no expressive language, often having receptive language skills equivalent to children under one year old," said Professor Whiteley. "There is evidence of significant language skill catch-up for these children during the first three months of the programme, but, for some, later progress is reduced. That said, the progress does continue at a rate consistent with normal development, so that is definitely positive."

Professor Whiteley is presenting a paper about this research at the British Psychological Society Education Section Conference, and feels that it is an area that will capture a lot of interest. "Literacy is crucial to enable access to the whole educational curriculum; if we cannot read, we are unlikely to achieve generally and will have reduced chances of employment, leading to poverty and poor literacy. It is a negative cycle and so psychologists can make a real difference by finding ways to intervene early, preventing these difficulties from arising and giving children a better start in life." 

The aim is that the research will lead to financial support being made available for new early intervention work with very young children and their families, and Professor Whiteley is hoping to continue working with schools, nurseries, Sure Start and children's centres on this kind of programme. "Within educational psychology, it is all about understanding the identification of risk, intervention and research into learning. I hope to bring real-life experience of various issues into the classroom and help make a difference," she added.