At Start Early, we know that reading is fundamental to a child’s development. As we celebrate Read Across America Day, we recognize the importance of making reading with your little ones a priority every day! By reading with your young child, you are not only bonding and inspiring a love of reading, but also developing strong early language and literacy skills that are key to future learning and success.
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No matter how old your child is — from babies and toddlers to preschoolers — these six tips from our experts will help you make the most of storytime:
- Start early. Reading to babies is important for healthy brain development and lays the foundation for language and writing skills.
- Make reading a part of your daily routine. Establishing a routine helps ensure that reading is part of your daily schedule, such as before naptime and bedtime. It also creates times during the day that both of you can look forward to.
- Try board and cloth books for babies. By age 1, most babies can grab books. Board and cloth books are great options for babies who like to touch things and put everything in their mouths.
- Take turns with your toddler. By age 2, most toddlers can hold a book and point at the pictures. Let your toddler turn the pages of a board book, and respond when they point or react to the story.
- Ask your child questions. As you read to your child, make the experience interactive by asking questions, such as “What do you think will happen next?” or “What was your favorite part of the story? Why?”
- Just keep reading. Reading to your child helps them develop a habit of listening to stories and loving books. This is one of the most important pieces of advice – make sure you are reading early and often.
One of the most important aspects of building early literacy skills is for parents to read to their young children. Through sharing these moments of being together and parents showing their genuine love for reading, children also get excited for reading which sets the foundation for building lifelong literacy skills.
Danielle Jordan, Senior Master Teacher, Educare Chicago
See our expert in action!
Check out how Educare Chicago Senior Master Teacher Danielle leads her class in a lesson on perspective and how you can tell the same story
in different ways.
Families living in communities that are under-resourced lack access to the quality early learning and care programs that help level the playing field and close the opportunity gap. With your support, we can provide literacy support for families in greatest need.
Whether your child is a newborn or about to head to kindergarten, here are some great books to read during storytime:
- Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
- Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae
- Smile, Baby Faces Board Book by Roberta Grobel Intrater
- Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry
- Peekaboo Morning by Rachel Isadora
- We’re Different, We’re the Same by Bobbi Kates
- Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems
- Grumpy Monkey by Suzanne Lang and Max Lang
- What If by Samantha Berger
- Swimmy by Leo Lionni
- The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
Other Early Learning Resources:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is home to several federal offices that set key policies for children and families. As President Biden’s nominee for HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, appears before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on February 23, we hope he will keep the needs of children and families at the forefront of the agency’s ongoing work and its efforts to rebuild and recover amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Families, providers, and community and state systems leaders have spent this last year learning and innovating as the pandemic forced swift action and adaptation related to key issues of access, inclusion, and equity in early care and learning. Here are the lessons we hope new HHS leadership will heed from early childhood stakeholders as they take the agency’s helm:
1. For the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: Enable and scale innovations related to home-visiting and early intervention services.
HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should explore new ways to leverage federal funding streams — like Medicaid — to expand access to evidence-based home visiting programs and doula services. By making access to MIECHV supported doula services a priority, HHS has the opportunity to address disparities in maternal health outcomes, improve engagement in home visiting, and strengthen the continuum of health-supportive interventions starting prenatally. Here in Illinois, Start Early has supported legislation to expand the Medicaid program to cover evidence-based home visiting and doula services, helping to ensure families have access to these high-quality supports that keep them and their children healthy. Expanding Medicaid to cover these important interventions will allow for state-wide expansion of home visiting and doula capacity and coordination of services and supports for children and families from before birth through early childhood. Under its new leadership, we encourage CMS to continue working with Illinois and other states who are working to remove barriers that prevent low-income women from accessing home visiting and doula services, provide guidance and support to states like Illinois that are looking to expand Medicaid coverage of these services, and replicate those efforts at the federal level. This includes timely approvals of flexibilities such as the 1115 waiver which extends postpartum coverage for women on Medicaid for up to 12 months.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, CMS has issued waivers and flexibilities that support the use of telehealth among Medicare beneficiaries. This has benefitted many underserved and priority populations, including children and families in rural areas and those receiving Early Intervention services. HHS has the opportunity to ensure that telehealth remains an option for delivery of all Early Intervention services beyond the current public health emergency. We strongly encourage CMS to use this unprecedented moment as an opportunity to learn from states and local communities where continuation of Medicaid-funded telehealth might benefit kids and families.
2. For the Administration for Children and Families: Promote cross-program collaboration and funding stream innovations that strengthen the U.S.’s child care infrastructure.
HHS’s Administration for Children and Families is home to the federal Office of Child Care and Office of Head Start, two entities that are positioned to continue making great strides in strengthening our nation’s child care infrastructure.
A key lesson from the pandemic is that simply stabilizing child care is not sufficient. We must also focus on improving, strengthening and redesigning our child care system to make it more equitable and accessible and supportive of the unique needs of home-based child care providers and family choice. We urge the Office of Child Care to explore how staffed family child care networks and shared services alliances can fulfill these goals, by increasing providers’ access to technical assistance and families’ access to embedded health, mental health and family engagement services. An investment in research is also essential, to determine the effectiveness of different types of networks for increasing supply, improving quality, enhancing child outcomes and to identify effective programs that support family, friend, and neighbor caregivers to maintain safe, stimulating home environments and earn livable wages.
We also encourage the Administration for Children and Families to explore how existing federal funding streams — including the Preschool Development B-5 funds, Head Start funds, and Child Care Development Block Grant — can be leveraged to ensure providers and networks of providers can partner effectively to best serve the children and families in their communities. While the pandemic has revealed the fragility of our under-resourced child care sector, it has also illuminated the importance of providers being able to braid or layer different funding sources to provide comprehensive services to families. Strong programs braid funding from various sources in order to ensure that the families they serve have access to a comprehensive, high-quality early childhood education experience. The Administration for Children and Families should work closely with state administrators to ensure providers at the local level can partner effectively by encouraging layered funding. This would go a long way toward improving the quality of experience for families with young children by increasing the opportunities for pre-k, head start, early head start and child care partnerships. Family child care networks and shared services alliances can be one of the vehicles for building those partnerships, as can the Early Head Start Child Care Partnerships model, which helps raise the bar on what quality infant and toddler care can and should be.
3. For the Health Resources and Services Administration: Learn from families and home visitors about their COVID-related funding and flexibility needs.
HHS’s Health Resources and Services Administration is home to the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home-Visiting (MIECHV) Program. Nearly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, home-visitors and their clients have learned a lot about the limitations of home-visiting funding sources and the additional flexibilities needed to deliver high-quality services during this time. Pending the inclusion of additional MIECHV funding in future COVID relief packages, HHS should continue to support the home visiting field and MIECHV program by offering the utmost flexibility to state grantees. Without losing sight of the goal to return to in-person home visiting when the pandemic subsides, HHS should capitalize on the opportunity to evaluate what the field has learned from the shift to virtual service delivery, from ways to creatively engage families to new sets of workforce supports. As the field works to understand the blend of service delivery strategies that will best serve families in the long-term, research should ensure key equity issues are investigated including access to and comfort with technology, and disparities in health risks and comfort with in-home services moving forward.
Racial inequities embedded in our current health care system make prenatal and maternal health care less accessible and less responsive to Black mothers regardless of their socio-economic status.
In a recent Block Club Chicago article exploring how doulas can help even the playing field in maternal health for women of color, Denise Cain — a mother in Start Early’s (formerly known as the Ounce) Healthy Parents & Babies program — spoke about how she benefitted from having a doula guide her through her second pregnancy and postpartum care.
“Support from a doula — who is trained to advise and offer emotional and physical support to mothers before and after birth — can make a big difference in the unequal health outcomes women of color face,” Diana McClarien, vice president of Start Early’s Early Head Start & Head Start Network shared in the piece.
In the piece, Start Early doula Patricia Ceja-Muhsen explains how doulas help inform women about all the different choices they can make, empowering them to have more control over their pregnancy and birthing process. She also adds that doulas can make sure doctors listen, address all of an expecting mom’s concerns and fully inform women about their options and the care they are receiving.
Start Early’s direct-service programs provide critical supports to young parents for building strong relationships with their baby and creating a safe and stimulating home environment. It is programs like these that can ensure all new moms and babies, including Black moms and babies, receive the quality physical and emotional care they need and deserve.
Read the full article at Block Club Chicago.
Quality early learning and care can help our country address so many of the issues raised during this week’s confirmation hearing for President Biden’s nominee for education secretary, Miguel Cardona, including addressing the opportunity gap, providing social and emotional supports, and providing learning opportunities that are culturally and linguistically responsive and honor students’ unique needs and abilities.
Learning begins at birth and our education system should begin then as well. We can’t expect the K-12 system to remediate opportunity gaps that open before a child’s first birthday.
Cardona shared a desire to not only meet the immediate needs of students and their families amidst the pandemic, but to think beyond the present to design for building back better. This will require new ways of thinking and working. While today’s hearing focused on K-12 and higher education, we hope Cardona will address our education system as a single, interconnected journey that begins at birth (and before) and that must provide equitably and adequately for our students at every step. Of course, this will require aligning and coordinating early childhood work across the federal government, as strengthening early childhood programs and supports won’t be the work of the Education Department (ED) alone. We hope Cardona will champion these investments, even if they might happen outside of the Education Department, and partner closely with his peer leaders at other federal agencies that deeply impact young children, particularly the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Additionally, the collaboration between ED and HHS departments would send a message to system leaders at all levels to do the same — creating an opportunity to use ED’s bully pulpit to drive radical collaboration that benefits all children.
We appreciate the focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion and addressing the opportunity gap in the vision that Cardona has laid out. Additionally, we appreciate his commitment to examining school discipline issues and inequities, which have serious implications for all children, including our youngest learners and children of color.
Sens. Kaine and Cassidy also raised issues around supports for learners who have disabilities. Appropriate screening and early intervention are critical to ensuring their success, as is increasing funding the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act. We agree with Cardona that this would be a “game-changer” for learners.
Finally, it is important that all educators be offered the opportunity to be vaccinated as quickly as possible, a task that is so much harder in early childhood given the fragmentation of programs and providers. Given the vaccine roll out has varied at the local level, we encourage federal guidance that all educators be prioritized—whether they teach toddlers or 12th graders.
We encourage Commissioner Cardona, as well as the President and Congress, to continue to move quickly on delivering COVID-19 relief to children, families, and those who serve them, including ensuring that educators — beginning with those who teach our youngest learners — are included in priority groups for vaccine access.
COVID-19 has accelerated issues in our early education system that have been overlooked for decades. There has never been a better—or more critical time—for a U.S. Secretary of Education to chart their own course and boldly lead on early childhood.
The good news, addressing early learning and care is one of the few bipartisan opportunities for the incoming Biden administration. Polling from last year shows that early childhood education has broad support among Republicans, Democrats and independents. COVID-19 has shown that early learning and care is not a “nice-to-have”—it’s essential for children, families and our economy.
That’s why we are optimistic about President Biden’s choice in Miguel Cardona for U.S. Secretary of Education. Cardona brings two decades of experience as a practitioner in K-12 and has shown a commitment to equity and early learning, having served as co-chairperson of the Connecticut Birth to Grade Three Leaders Council. Additionally, his personal story is inspiring and reflective of the lived experiences of many of our early learners.
Many of the funding increases at the Education Department (ED) promised by the president during his campaign could allow states to meaningfully increase access to high-quality inclusive early learning programs and services, and we look forward to working with the new administration.
The new Secretary has an opportunity to provide the leadership needed to revise and improve programs, policies and funding streams managed by ED that impact the children and families we serve, including:
Aligning and coordinating early childhood work across the federal government.
As COVID-19 has illuminated, children and families rely on a complex fabric of supports to function and thrive, weaving everything from access to health care and broadband internet together. Similarly, the programs, policies, and funding streams that serve children from birth through age 5 and their families sit in multiple departments across the federal government.
Strengthening early childhood programs and supports won’t be the work of the Education Department alone.
Secretary Cardona will need to reinstitute strong collaborations between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other federal child and family serving agencies to ensure a seamless and comprehensive early learning system for families.
Increasing funding for Title I and ensuring states prioritize investments in prenatal-to-age-5 early childhood education.
Under Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), our nation’s education law, school districts (LEAs) can use Title I funds towards quality early childhood education. However, many haven’t done so, largely due to a lack of understanding on how to use or access these funds.Secretary Cardona has an opportunity to prioritize use of Title 1 funds for early childhood by providing clearer expectations and incentives for this use.
For one, like our K-12 students, our youngest learners face steep learning losses as a result of being out of the classroom for the past year. Studies have found preschool participation fell by half in some places, and few families have remained consistently involved in remote opportunities. When programs offered at-home learning support, most children participated less than once a week. As Title I funds are directed to support learning losses throughout the education system, programs serving children from birth through age 5 should be included as well.
Finally, while the potential increases in funding for preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds that President Biden has called for are exciting, even greater investment must be prioritized for infants and toddlers (and prenatally), to build a comprehensive prenatal-to-age 5 early learning system. We hope Cardona will champion these investments, even if they might happen outside of ED.
Ensuring school districts and community-based programs are set up for success to leverage Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds to support our youngest learners with disabilities and developmental delays across a continuum of settings.
Despite programs and resources designed to support them, children with disabilities remain underserved by early care and learning programs. Cardona can ensure our youngest learners with disabilities and developmental delays have access to early care and learning programs that are designed and resourced to support them by fully funding the IDEA, permanently authorizing the Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities (Part C of IDEA), and significantly increasing funding to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Program.
Including the unique needs of the early learning workforce in decisions around higher education financing, educator compensation and public service loan forgiveness.
The early childhood workforce was facing a crisis even before the COVID-19 pandemic. For years early learning professionals have been systemically underpaid and undervalued, creating a minimally trained workforce vulnerable to high turnover even as demand has increased.
Take the average child care professional. Despite having attained a bachelor’s degree in early learning and care to acquire the specific knowledge and skills needed to provide quality learning and care to our youngest children, she makes on average just $25,000 a year. She works for a private, for-profit child care center, making current options for student loan forgiveness unavailable. As she begins her own family, the pay won’t justify the expenses to find child care for her own children.
There are many ways Secretary Cardona could support a well-trained and well-paid early childhood workforce, including making Pell grants available for those interested in degrees in early learning and care or opening up student loan forgiveness to any child care worker regardless of whether they work for a for-profit or nonprofit child care center.
Countless families continue to lack access to child care, early learning programs or in-person instruction as a result of the ongoing pandemic. In our final Starting Early Begins With… event, a diverse group of experts discussed the dismal state of our workforce and what needs to be done at corporate, provider and policy levels to reopen our early learning programs equitably and safely. Panelists included:
- Dr. Theresa Hawley, First Assistant Deputy Governor, Education, State of Illinois
- Peter J. Holt, CEO and General Manager, HOLT CAT; Co-Chair, Early Matters San Antonio
- Angela Lampkin, Director, Educare Chicago
- Cheryl Oldham, Vice President of Education Policy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Senior Vice President of Education and Workforce, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation
- Moderator: Diana Rauner, President, Start Early
Watch the Webinar Recording
The discussion kicked off with first-hand reflections on how and why America’s workforce has diminished to what it is today. As early learning and care programs have closed or pivoted to virtual settings, many families are facing tough decisions about whether to leave jobs or hire additional assistance to properly care for their children. Others have lost jobs and are unable to afford to send their children to private providers.
The sad reality is that women have been hit harder by this recession. Not only are women voluntarily leaving careers to care for children, but they are also a staple of industries struggling most, such as hospitality or dining. Each month, hundreds of thousands of women — nearly eight times more than the number of men — are dropping out of the U.S. labor force. In September 2020 alone, about 617,000 women left the workforce, compared to only 78,000 men.1
As one panelist noted, these staggering statistics “cut at the knees” of the work that employers have done to build a more diverse workforce that includes women and minority leaders. “It’s a wakeup call,” the panelist added. “We need to help [employers] to understand the things they can do to support employees, and specifically women employees.”
Another panelist noted that in some cases, state and policymakers are responsible for ensuring the right supports are in place for working families. For example, in Texas, the state included child care centers when labeling and defining what is essential.
When asked how we collaboratively reopen programs and businesses successfully and equitably — while also supporting the needs of families and young children — panelists shared the following:
- flexibility and adaptability
- grace and understanding for families
- matching our dollars with intention
- examining how work and life work together
These critical phrases showcase that there are, in fact, promising actions that can be taken to address the complex and unprecedented issues we delved into during this event. Diana closed by reinforcing that as a society, “We need to acknowledge that these children are everyone’s responsibility… We as a community and as a nation have to find ways to support parents and not pretend that it’s a private thing that they do on the side when they’re not at work. But, rather, that it’s critically important that we provide the supports – social supports, maternal supports, health supports and, of course, child care.”
Thank you again to our panelists for spending time with Start Early and sharing such relevant and critical information with all who attended.
Starting Early Begins With…
Early Childhood Advocacy. Prenatal & Maternal Health Care. Economic & Workforce Stability.
About the Series
Decades of research have proven that quality early learning and care programs can have positive multi-generation impact, lifting families out of poverty and setting a foundation for success. Start Early invites you to a three-part discussion series with experts who will offer critical solutions to make equal opportunity to these programs a reality. While each virtual event offers a different perspective and topic, this series comprehensively covers concrete and evidence-based solutions for combating one of society’s most complex problems – generational poverty.
Empowering parents in their role as their child’s first and most important teacher is an essential component of quality early learning and care.
A recent piece in “Early Learning Nation” looks at the benefits of intensive family engagement, a key component of the Educare model featured in a new documentary, “Tomorrow’s Hope.” One of the educators featured in the film is Brenda Eiland-Williford, director of early childhood quality and impact at Start Early. She shares how partnering with parents — building a foundation of support, bonding and relationships — can help communities undergoing transitions and give children and families “the problem-solving, conflict-management and self-regulation skills to thrive.”
Family engagement will also be critical to the success of cities, states and communities as they reckon with how to rebuild early childhood systems back better in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents and caregivers have the clearest perspective of what their family needs, and family voices — like those featured in “Tomorrow’s Hope” — must be included in the planning, implementation, oversight and evaluation of all programs serving children from birth to age 5 and their families.
Rebecca Berlin, chief learning officer at Start Early and principal investigator of the National Center for Parent, Family and Community Engagement (NCPFCE) why lifting up family voices is so important in another “Early Learning Nation” piece: “We know this will lead to early learning programs that truly support family well-being, effective family and community engagement and children’s school readiness so that every child has the opportunity to thrive.”
We are excited to share our annual Start Early 2020 Year In Review report, which showcases the incredible work achieved throughout last fiscal year (July 1, 2019 – June 30, 2020). The last half of the year proved to be challenging and uncertain – yet, the unyielding resilience of families and the early learning and care field during a devastating global pandemic has been inspiring.
The highlights from this past fiscal year demonstrate how our work and our longstanding goals for transformation have been accelerated by the crises that face our country. The report also showcases the innovative solutions that early learning champions developed and deployed to address the unprecedented challenges impacting families.
As we look forward, Start Early recommits to strengthening and deepening our role as an anti-racist organization that works in true partnership with communities to ensure the voices of families are represented, heard and valued. We are grateful for the ongoing support of our partners and donors, and together, we can advance better, more equitable early learning opportunities for our youngest children.
The second Starting Early Begins With… speaker series discussion painted a grim and preventable reality that exists for new Black mothers and their babies. The United States continues to report the highest rates of maternal mortality for birth parents when compared to 10 similarly wealthy countries.
Dr. Joia Adele Crear-Perry, MD, FACOG, a nationally recognized thought leader around racism as a root cause of health inequities, kicked off the event by sharing the background of the maternal and infant health crisis and its disproportionate effect on families of color.
“The United States was not built on a human rights framework… You should have the right to education, to housing, to food. Not to be a billionaire. But, for just a basic income – having a living wage,” Dr. Joia framed. “We don’t invest in things like paid leave, child care; the things we know that we desperately need right now, like free health insurance.”
Both systematic racial and gender racism generate chronic stressors for Black women that contribute to higher rates of maternal death. In addition, racial inequities are embedded in our current health care system, making care less accessible and less responsive to Black mothers and children as it should be, regardless of socio-economic status.
Later in the discussion, Start Early President Diana Rauner added how, “the COVID-19 pandemic has exasperated the stressors that exist for Black women and health care providers in under-resourced communities.”
Fortunately, Dr. Joia and Diana shared many solutions for overcoming this avoidable and tragic reality – services, such as doulas and home visiting, and programs that offer universal newborn supports, which are proven to ultimately reach more under-resourced families. In addition, Dr. Joia noted that, “… we [need to] stop racializing things like Medicaid. We all need health care, not just Black people.”
Start Early’s direct-service programs provide critical supports to young parents for building strong relationships with their baby and creating a safe and stimulating home environment. It is programs like these that can ensure all new moms and babies, including Black moms and babies, receive the quality physical and emotional care they need and deserve.
Watch the Webinar Recording
Thank you again to Dr. Joia for spending time with Start Early and bringing such a critical topic to the forefront of your work.
Starting Early Begins With…
Early Childhood Advocacy. Prenatal & Maternal Health Care. Economic & Workforce Stability.
About the Series
Decades of research have proven that quality early learning and care programs can have positive multi-generation impact, lifting families out of poverty and setting a foundation for success. Start Early invites you to a three-part discussion series with experts who will offer critical solutions to make equal opportunity to these programs a reality. While each virtual event offers a different perspective and topic, this series comprehensively covers concrete and evidence-based solutions for combating one of society’s most complex problems – generational poverty.
A growing concern for the early childhood field is how to best support parents and families in nurturing their young children’s healthy development. Educators and leaders are eager to help families gain the knowledge and tools they need to effectively engage in their children’s learning.
Technology-based interventions hold great promise for reaching and communicating with families. These interventions are relatively low-cost, scalable, and accessible for parents who use their mobile phones for communication and information seeking. Technology-based interventions can also reinforce the learning and community building of on-the-ground family support programs. But this promise can only hold true if the technology products are designed to reach parents and communicate what they want to know.
In the last few years, a number of tech-based family engagement platforms and tools designed to guide parents have emerged, including apps like Vroom, Let’s Play, and Kinedu, video tools like Ready Rosie, texting programs such as Text4Baby and Ready4K, podcasts, and word-tracking wearables like LENA and Starling. As awareness about early childhood development increases, more technology players (non-profit and for-profit) are likely to enter this space.
At The Early Learning Lab (The Lab), we have spent the past year surveying early childhood technology tools, learning how various products and programs are being implemented and evaluated, and identifying best technology practices for early childhood family engagement.
Whether you are an entrepreneur developing a new early learning tech product, a school administrator trying to find an effective family-engagement tool, or a parent-support program operator looking to add a digital component to your program, The Lab sees the following 10 design elements as critical to the impact of any early learning parent engagement tool:
10 Critical Design Elements for Parent Engagement Technology
- Research-based: The early learning research community has built a solid body of evidence on the neuroscience of developing minds and the practices that support early learning, health, and development. For example, the Center on the Developing Child out of Harvard has a wealth of research on developing executive functioning skills in children; the torch that Hart and Risely lit on the word gap is carried by researchers such as Dana Suskind; the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has developed a body of work around developing emotional intelligence in children. Any technology tool worth developing or investing in should be research-based. Moreover, an affiliation with researchers is a good sign that the developers are serious about improving outcomes for children. A good example is the app Vroom, which was developed in collaboration with a bevy of early childhood researchers.
- Has an Evaluation Strategy: Often, when developing commercial technology tools, the only success metric that counts for developers (and their investors) is the number of users. In the social sector, revenue isn’t good enough – we have to demonstrate impact. Developers that are serious about improving child outcomes will have an evaluation strategy. They will articulate a theory of change and the tool’s intended impact; they will have clear measures to evaluate it. They will be transparent about the data they collect and have a strategy to iterate on their model if they are not having the desired impact.
- Co-designed: Parenting is a highly personal pursuit and emotionally-charged issue that often reflects differences in culture, class, and values. The early childhood field has stumbled when trying to prescribe practices to parents in a top-down manner that does not take into account the realities parents face. Products and programs must be co-designed with parents, and this means going beyond focus groups and informational interviews. Parents should not only be part of defining the problem, they should be part of developing the solution. This means partnering with parents to identify the impact the tool should have as well as the success measures used. Parents should also participate in the design and testing of the product.
- Accessible: Accessibility is key to any technology product, but the importance is magnified when developing technology for social change. The key is to know your audience, and make sure that what you are developing can actually be used by the people you want to reach. With technology created for parent engagement consider the following:
- Language: Is your tool accessible to people who speak languages other than English?
- Literacy Level: Are there content pathways in your tool for people with low levels of literacy?
- Cost: Is your tool affordable? If it is mobile-based, does it require the use of data plans that may be too costly for your target audience?
- Platform: Where are your users? Go to them, don’t make them come to you. Chances are, asking people to download an app or purchase new hardware or software will create a barrier that you will have to overcome for product adoption.
- Ease-of-use: Obviously, user experience and user interface design are huge considerations when developing a technology product, but also consider how your tool fits into the lives of your audience. Does it require a daily or weekly time commitment? Can content be consumed in pieces, or does the user have to set a considerable amount of time aside to interact with your tool? Many texting programs, such as Stanford’s Ready4K! are based in part on the theory from behavioral science that small “nudges” of information are more effective in supporting new behaviors than large amounts of information delivered at once.
- Puts Data in the Hands of the User: One of the most exciting aspects of technology is that it allows for the gathering, processing, and delivery of information quickly. But who gets to see the data is an important consideration.At The Lab, we are firm believers that users should have access to their own data (or in the case of parent engagement, parents should have access to data on their children). For example, tools such as LENA and the Starling allow parents to track the number of words their child hears over the course of the day. User feedback on these tools suggest that their effectiveness is at least partially due to the empowerment that results from access to this data. (Parents can see the effect of their actions in increasing the number of words their children hear, a recognized metric for fostering early learning.)
- Builds Community: Technology is often denigrated for its role in decreasing personal connections, but it can also be a powerful connector. After all, communication and connection are at the heart of many technologies, from email to Facebook, which create bridges based on shared interest across geographies.When developing or evaluating a technology for family engagement, think about how that tool can create connections among users and build their social capital. The LENA Research Foundation developed a program called LENA Start to help community-based organizations and schools conduct group trainings for parents on using LENA at home with their children. Not only did parents learn about the tool, they benefitted from connecting with each other by sharing tips and experiences about the trials and tribulations of raising a young child.Similarly, the website Understood has a robust online community that connects parents of children with learning and attention issues, a group that sometimes feels stigmatized in their offline communities and schools.
- Accommodates Two-Way and Peer-to-Peer Communication: Users are no longer just consumers of content, they’re creators of it. A smart developer will solicit user-generated feedback to understand how the tool is being used, what’s working and what’s not.Smart tools will also let users connect with other users to share their own content. Ready Rosie is a program that delivers videos to parents, modeling fun learning activities they can do with their children. The Ready Rosie team found that some of their users were eager to share their own learning activities with the Ready Rosie community, so the team has incorporated those activities into the official Ready Rosie curriculum.
- Incorporates Rapid Feedback Cycles: Waterfall is out, agile is in, and modern technology development is all about rapid cycle feedback. Any product worth investing in should be on a continuous improvement path. Strong developers will monitor usage data frequently to quickly incorporate user feedback in iterations of their product. Success metrics should be tracked to determine if the product is meeting its stated goals, and the developers should have a plan in place to adjust the product roadmap if it is not.
- Builds User Self-Efficacy: Parents are the experts on their children. Most instinctively know what they need to do to support their children’s healthy development. Our role should be to 1) fill in knowledge gaps where they exist by giving parents information on the high-value practices they should be doing with their children; 2) ensure parents have enough knowledge of child development and their role in supporting their child’s growth over time. The goal is to help parents build their own parenting muscles and see the beneficial effects they have on their children. Rather than keeping parents dependent on experts every step of the way, technology should help parents become strong advocates for their children’s learning and academic success.
- Embedded in Existing Systems: Technology products, embedded in the systems in which parents are already interacting (their local school district, their local library, an existing home visitation program), have the best chance of gaining parents’ attention. Rather than going straight to consumers, Ready4K partners with school districts to register the families of incoming students for their texting program. BringingUp, from the creators of Ready Rosie, allows teachers to send videos to their families to help build the school-home connection while also fostering early learning at home. A dashboard allows teachers to track which of their families are viewing the videos. Texting programs like Talk, Read, Sing partner with media outlets such as Univision to reach parents who might not otherwise hear about the program. Embedding products into existing delivery channels make user acquisition easier, and make it easier on families who may already be feeling pulled in too many directions.
All in all, no one product is going to have all 10 of these elements. But this list can serve as a useful guide for developers and a wish list for people who are evaluating and purchasing technology products for parent engagement. Technology holds great promise for reaching large numbers of families and helping us achieve the goal of kindergarten readiness for all, but only if the products we develop and use are designed for impact.
