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Receptiveness of the Kindytxt Universal Early Literacy Texting Program by Parents from Low, Medium, and High Socioeconomic Communities

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Title: Receptiveness of the Kindytxt Universal Early Literacy Texting Program by Parents from Low, Medium, and High Socioeconomic Communities
Language: English
Authors: Susan M. Hill (ORCID 0000-0002-1833-2500), Caroline Barratt-Pugh (ORCID 0000-0002-1470-0089), Nicola F. Johnson (ORCID 0000-0001-7875-3027), Lennie Barblett (ORCID 0000-0003-0510-2244)
Source: Early Childhood Education Journal. 2025 53(7):2767-2781.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 15
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Elementary Education
Kindergarten
Primary Education
Descriptors: Parent Attitudes, Telecommunications, Handheld Devices, Emergent Literacy, Family Programs, Socioeconomic Status, Program Attitudes, Kindergarten
DOI: 10.1007/s10643-024-01788-5
ISSN: 1082-3301
1573-1707
Abstract: The home literacy environment (HLE) plays an important role in children's early literacy learning. Texting programs are an increasing feature of family literacy interventions that support parent engagement in their children's learning. Unlike face-to-face interventions, texting programs can offer sustained parental support at low cost and large scale. Messages can be translated into other languages, saved and shared, thus potentially widening the influence on children's HLEs. Most early literacy texting programs target families from disadvantaged communities, yet research suggests all families may benefit from guidance on supporting their children's early literacy. This study examined the receptiveness of a universal early literacy texting program, Kindytxt, by parents of kindergarten children from low, medium and high socioeconomic communities. Kindytxt was developed as a component of a universal book gifting program that uses a library-school model of program delivery and has statewide reach. Parents received 90 texts over 30 weeks and were invited to provide feedback via SMS at several intervals. Non-parametric tests were used to compare parent responses based on community-level socioeconomic status. Similarly high levels of parental support were evident across all socioeconomic strata. We argue that a universal approach can avoid the stigma and potentially lower uptake of programs that target disadvantaged families. Moreover, the Kindytxt cooperative delivery model allows targeted strategies to be incorporated within the universal program. Teachers and librarians can proactively bolster recruitment to the texting program and support parents to differentiate the literacy activities to suit their child's cultural context and level of literacy development.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1483250
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0187863993;5mx01oct.25;2025Sep12.06:13;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0187863993-1">Receptiveness of the Kindytxt Universal Early Literacy Texting Program by Parents from Low, Medium, and High Socioeconomic Communities </title> <p>The home literacy environment (HLE) plays an important role in children's early literacy learning. Texting programs are an increasing feature of family literacy interventions that support parent engagement in their children's learning. Unlike face-to-face interventions, texting programs can offer sustained parental support at low cost and large scale. Messages can be translated into other languages, saved and shared, thus potentially widening the influence on children's HLEs. Most early literacy texting programs target families from disadvantaged communities, yet research suggests all families may benefit from guidance on supporting their children's early literacy. This study examined the receptiveness of a universal early literacy texting program, Kindytxt, by parents of kindergarten children from low, medium and high socioeconomic communities. Kindytxt was developed as a component of a universal book gifting program that uses a library-school model of program delivery and has statewide reach. Parents received 90 texts over 30 weeks and were invited to provide feedback via SMS at several intervals. Non-parametric tests were used to compare parent responses based on community-level socioeconomic status. Similarly high levels of parental support were evident across all socioeconomic strata. We argue that a universal approach can avoid the stigma and potentially lower uptake of programs that target disadvantaged families. Moreover, the Kindytxt cooperative delivery model allows targeted strategies to be incorporated within the universal program. Teachers and librarians can proactively bolster recruitment to the texting program and support parents to differentiate the literacy activities to suit their child's cultural context and level of literacy development.</p> <p>Keywords: Early literacy development; Family literacy practices; Home literacy environment; Kindergarten children; Parental involvement; Parent-child interactions; Challenging deficit thinking; Education Specialist Studies In Education Medical and Health Sciences Public Health and Health Services</p> <p>Copyright comment Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-2">Introduction</hd> <p>Children commence formal schooling with literacy knowledge and skills shaped by their home environment and everyday social and cultural experiences (Carpentieri et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref1">10</reflink>]; Markose et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref2">38</reflink>]; Newman et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref3">43</reflink>]). The influence of the home literacy environment on children's later school achievement has been well established (Araújo & Costa, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref4">2</reflink>]; Dong et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref5">19</reflink>]; Fikrat-Wevers et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref6">23</reflink>]; Nutbrown et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref7">45</reflink>]; Sénéchal & Young, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref8">48</reflink>]), and differences in home literacy practices can be an important contributing factor to children's early education success (Adams et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref9">1</reflink>]; Esmaeeli, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref10">22</reflink>]; Markose et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref11">38</reflink>]; Niklas & Schneider, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref12">44</reflink>]). Efforts to ameliorate inequality in home literacy environments and the ubiquity of mobile phones (Deloitte, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref13">17</reflink>]) have seen the rise of family literacy interventions utilising text messaging.</p> <p>To date, most early literacy texting programs have targeted families living in low socioeconomic communities - either to supplement an existing targeted intervention (Hurwitz et al., [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref14">30</reflink>]; Jimenez et al., [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref15">31</reflink>]; McWilliams, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref16">39</reflink>]) or as a stand-alone program delivered within a city, school district or clinical setting (Cabell et al., [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref17">9</reflink>]; Connelly et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref18">13</reflink>]; Doss et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref19">20</reflink>]; Meuwissen et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref20">40</reflink>]; Olson et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref21">46</reflink>]; Snell et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref22">51</reflink>]; York et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref23">55</reflink>]). Studies have examined program reach (Cunningham et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref24">16</reflink>]), program structure, delivery and retention (Cortes et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref25">14</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref26">15</reflink>]; Fricke et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref27">25</reflink>]), parental perceptions of the program (Snell et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref28">50</reflink>]; Stokes et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref29">52</reflink>]), parental engagement with program activities (Hurwitz et al., [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref30">30</reflink>]; Jimenez et al., [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref31">31</reflink>]), and longitudinal impacts on children's early literacy outcomes (Cabell et al., [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref32">9</reflink>]; Doss et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref33">20</reflink>]; York et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref34">55</reflink>]). Given the targeted nature of most texting programs, studies that compare their influence on families from different socioeconomic communities are limited, and few have covered parent perceptions of programs that cover multiple aspects of early literacy. For universal programs, such understanding is essential to optimise the participation and retention of all families, particularly those experiencing disadvantage. In this paper, we extend current research by exploring engagement in, and perceptions of, a universal literacy-based texting program ("Kindytxt") by parents[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref35">1</reflink>] based in low, medium and high socioeconomic communities and consider the implications for the design and delivery of universal early literacy texting programs.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-3">Literature Review</hd> <p>Texting programs are an important development in interventions aimed at promoting parental engagement in children's early learning. Unlike face-to-face programs, they can offer flexible, ongoing support over a sustained period at relatively low cost (Kraft & Monti-Nussbaum, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref36">33</reflink>]; Stokes et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref37">52</reflink>]). The SMS (short messaging service) mode requires that early literacy concepts and skills are conveyed as concise, accessible chunks of information and achievable activities (York et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref38">55</reflink>]). Parents can access and revisit texts when convenient and, with the advent of translation apps, can access them in different languages (Lake & Beisly, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref39">34</reflink>]; Snell et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref40">50</reflink>]). Texting programs may also mitigate some of the personal, psychological and practical issues that can inhibit low socioeconomic families' engagement in group-based programs, such as a sense of stigma, self-consciousness, transport costs/difficulties and lack of access to childcare (Carpentieri et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref41">10</reflink>]; Hackworth et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref42">28</reflink>]; Hickey et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref43">29</reflink>]).</p> <p>Several controlled design studies have shown that texting programs can positively impact parent-child engagement in early literacy practices. For example, parents in the US Head Start program who received the additional text message intervention engaged in more learning activities with their children, with stronger effects noted for fathers and parents of boys (Hurwitz et al., [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref44">30</reflink>]). Randomized controlled trials of the Ready4K program (York et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref45">55</reflink>]) showed significant increases in parental engagement in home literacy activities, and teachers observed that the parents were more likely to be involved at their child's school and to ask questions about their child's learning and social interactions. The Text2Learn early literacy intervention (Meuwissen et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref46">40</reflink>]) involving a partnership between a university, two local libraries and a children's museum also showed increased parent-child engagement in literacy activities, but no change in parental use of community-based early learning resources.</p> <p>Evidence of the longitudinal impact of literacy-based texting programs is mixed and still emerging. York et al. ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref47">55</reflink>]) reported significant gains in children's early literacy but found that the lower-scoring children at baseline benefited more than their higher-scoring peers. Doss et al. ([<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref48">20</reflink>]) compared a general texting program with one that was differentiated and personalised according to the child's literacy level and found the latter yielded significantly greater gains. The study of a home-school vocabulary intervention reported a significant effect of the texting program on children's learning of target words, but no additional gains in receptive vocabulary (Snell et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref49">51</reflink>]). The comparative study by Cabell et al. ([<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref50">9</reflink>]) of a language and literacy texting program and a health and wellbeing texting program elicited somewhat surprising differential results such that lower-skilled children at baseline benefited more from the general health and wellbeing program than the literacy-focused program. A more recent study of the Tips by Text program (Stokes et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref51">52</reflink>]) showed no difference in literacy gains between the control and treatment groups, though the results may have been impacted by the high attrition rate (70%) and COVID-19 disruptions.</p> <p>Parents have reported that they appreciate receiving text messages as reminders to engage in literacy activities with their children (Meuwissen et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref52">40</reflink>]; Stokes et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref53">52</reflink>]). Several studies have endorsed findings from the Ready4K trials (York et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref54">55</reflink>]) suggesting that three messages per week, delivered over the weekend, consisting of a "fact" (information), a "tip" (activity) and a "growth" (reinforcement/extension) message are optimal for parent engagement (Cortes et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref55">14</reflink>]; Fricke et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref56">25</reflink>]; Stokes et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref57">52</reflink>]). Fricke et al. ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref58">25</reflink>]) found that parents who received activity messages scaffolded with context (fact or information) and encouragement (growth or extension) messages, were less likely to opt out than parents who received only activity messages. However, higher frequency messages (e.g., five per week) (Cortes et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref59">14</reflink>]; Fricke et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref60">25</reflink>]) or more complex text messages (Fricke et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref61">25</reflink>]) tended to prompt greater parent attrition.</p> <p>In general, parents have found texting program activities to be helpful (Cortes et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref62">14</reflink>]; Doss et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref63">20</reflink>]; McWilliams, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref64">39</reflink>]), useful (Simoncini et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref65">49</reflink>]; Stokes et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref66">52</reflink>]), or encouraging and fun (McWilliams, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref67">39</reflink>]). Important flow-on effects for parents have included increased confidence (Germeroth et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref68">26</reflink>]) or self-efficacy (Snell et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref69">50</reflink>]) as caregivers, the acquisition of new teaching skills (Connelly et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref70">13</reflink>]) and greater motivation to be involved in their child's learning (Germeroth et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref71">26</reflink>]; Snell et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref72">50</reflink>]). While parents have generally perceived the content of texting programs to be appropriate and at the "right" level for their child (Germeroth et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref73">26</reflink>]; Stokes et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref74">52</reflink>]), few studies have explored this in detail. Parent confidence in the legitimacy and value of texting programs has been indicated by studies that found parents shared text messages with family members and friends (Connelly et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref75">13</reflink>]) or would recommend the texting program to others (Germeroth et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref76">26</reflink>]; Hurwitz et al., [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref77">30</reflink>]; Olson et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref78">46</reflink>]; Simoncini et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref79">49</reflink>]).</p> <p>The positive perceptions of high-income, highly educated parents reported by Simoncini et al. ([<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref80">49</reflink>]) suggest that all families may benefit from texting programs regardless of socioeconomic status. This raises an interesting question about the merits of targeted versus universal early childhood programs (Fox & Geddes, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref81">24</reflink>]; Leseman & Slot, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref82">36</reflink>]) and the potential for incorporating targeted measures within a universal intervention to maximise engagement and retention by disadvantaged communities (Leseman & Slot, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref83">36</reflink>]; Powell et al., [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref84">47</reflink>]). Our study of a universal early literacy texting program has therefore sought to better understand the perspectives of parents from different socioeconomic strata by addressing the following research question:What influence, if any, does community-level socioeconomic status have on parent receptiveness to a universal literacy-based texting program in terms of self-reported engagement with literacy activities and perceptions of program content?</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-4">Program and Study Design</hd> <p>Kindytxt was designed to enhance family literacy practices and support home-school-library connections through inter-agency collaboration. Both the Kindytxt program and our study of its influence on families are underpinned by a sociocultural theoretical framework that highlights the importance of family involvement in learning literacy and emphasises the interactive nature of learning (Vygotsky, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref85">54</reflink>]). Families are perceived as pro-active and capable in supporting their child's literacy through everyday social and cultural contexts (Vygotsky, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref86">54</reflink>]; Newman et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref87">43</reflink>]; Dudley-Marling, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref88">21</reflink>]). The voices of the participating families and their experiences of Kindytxt are therefore central to the research.</p> <p>Kindytxt was developed to supplement the Kindergarten[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref89">2</reflink>] component of the State Library of Western Australia (SLWA) <emph>Better Beginnings</emph> (BB) program - a multi-tiered, universal book gifting and family literacy program. It aimed to promote and support parents' home literacy practices through scripted activities, brief information about why the activities support early literacy development, and ideas for extending the activities – all delivered via text messages. Over the 30-week program, an "Activity" message was delivered each Friday, followed by an "Information" message on Saturday, and an "Extension" activity message on Sunday. This messaging format was directly informed by the Ready4K model developed by ParentPowered (https://ready4K.parentpowered.com/research.html) and the associated research that supported the use of three texts per week (Doss et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref90">20</reflink>]; York et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref91">55</reflink>]).</p> <p>The literacy content of Kindytxt was informed by current and seminal research on early literacy learning (e.g., Clay, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref92">12</reflink>]; Djonov et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref93">18</reflink>]; Konza, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref94">32</reflink>]; Larson & March, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref95">35</reflink>]; National Institute for Literacy, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref96">42</reflink>]) and aligned to The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (Australian Government Department of Education, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref97">4</reflink>], updated 2022) and Western Australia (WA) Kindergarten Curriculum Guidelines (Government of Western Australia, School Curriculum and Standards Authority, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref98">27</reflink>], updated 2023). Kindytxt was delivered as part of a universal program; hence, whilst designed with the needs of families experiencing disadvantage in mind, the content needed to be acceptable and accessible to a broad audience. To achieve this, a co-design model was used to garner extensive input from key stakeholders via a series of workshops with practising kindergarten teachers, plus a working party, an education/technology consultative committee and an advisory committee – each comprised of early childhood academics and early childhood/literacy consultants from the Government, Catholic and independent school sectors.</p> <p>To reinforce the link to Better Beginnings, the initial Kindytxt messages (weeks 1–13) focused on books, shared reading and concepts about print. Subsequent messages progressed to phonemic and phonological awareness (weeks 14–21), oral language skills and vocabulary (weeks 22–25), and letter recognition (weeks 26–29), while the final set of messages (week 30) reiterated the importance of shared reading for engagement and enjoyment. Separate text messages requesting feedback from parents were also sent at several fixed intervals during the program, and these are described more fully below.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-5">Method</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187863993-6">Kindytxt Recruitment and Registration</hd> <p>As previously reported (Barratt-Pugh et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref99">5</reflink>]), the Kindytxt pilot was offered to the 742 schools and daycare centres that provided a kindergarten program and had registered for the SLWA BB Kindergarten program by 15 July 2021. This represented 78% of WA's total kindergarten programs in 2021. The July cut-off date was necessary to meet project timelines for the research following delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Information about Kindytxt, and documentation showing that the research had been approved by the Edith Cowan University Human Research Ethics Committee (2020 − 01945, 10 December 2020), Department of Education WA (D21/0132568, 23 March 2021) and Catholic Education WA (RP2020/45, 18 January 2021), was emailed to the principal/director of each school. Flyers inviting parents of kindergarten children to register for Kindytxt were distributed via three different methods with varying degrees of success (see Barratt-Pugh et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref100">5</reflink>]).</p> <p>In all, 849 parents from at least 152 schools subsequently registered for Kindytxt. The number of participating schools was likely higher since almost a third of participants (<emph>n</emph> = 277) opted not to identify their child's school. Most parents (89.3%, <emph>n</emph> = 758) provided a postal code from which the <emph>community-level</emph> socioeconomic status (CSES) of the neighbourhood was derived using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref101">3</reflink>]) Index of Relative Social Disadvantage (IRSD) which draws on 16 indicators of disadvantage, including "percentage of people with stated household equivalised income between [AU] $1 and $25,999 per year", "percentage of one parent families with dependent offspring only", and "percentage of families with children under 15 years of age who live with jobless parents" (ABS, 2018). Based on the IRSD, 35.7% (<emph>n</emph> = 271) of the participants were in the most socially disadvantaged ("low SES") communities (deciles 1–3 of the IRSD), 35.4% (<emph>n</emph> = 268) were in "medium SES" communities (deciles 4–7) and 28.9% (<emph>n</emph> = 219) were in "high SES" communities (deciles 8–10). Consistent with the population distribution of WA (Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE), [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref102">8</reflink>]), most of the parents (79%) in the sample were in the Perth metropolitan area - and those located in regional or rural areas were more likely to be from low or medium SES communities than high SES communities (i.e., 35.1%, 20.9% and 3.2%, respectively). For brevity, throughout the paper, we often refer to "low/medium/high CSES parents" rather than "parents from low/medium/high SES communities".</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-7">Data Sources and Response Rates</hd> <p>Parent feedback about their engagement with the Kindytxt literacy activities and perceptions of the program content was obtained via sets of three simple closed-ended questions sent as text messages to all registered participants at weeks 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 27 and 30 of the program. This allowed us to focus on the most recent Kindytxt activities, rather than relying on parents' longer-term recall after completing the program. The feedback items were sent on Tuesday to distinguish them from the program content delivered on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The questions were necessarily simple given the limitations of the SMS format – and only required participants to text the number(s) corresponding to their preferred answer. To avoid overwhelming or annoying participants with too many texts, not every aspect of the program was canvassed. Responses to the feedback items were entirely voluntary (as per ethics approval conditions) and 549 of the parents (64.7%) responded to at least one item. Additional comments (<emph>n</emph> = 993) via text were received from 319 parents, mostly because they "liked" a particular message, apologised for a late response, or replied "no problem" after receiving an automatic "thank you" message. However, 86 of the messages, sent by 56 different parents (low CSES = 36, medium CSES = 26, high SES = 24), contained specific feedback that contributed to our understanding of the Kindytxt program's influence.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-8">Analysis</hd> <p>The parents' SMS responses to the feedback items were captured in Microsoft Excel files via the bulk text messaging service. The derived CSES classifications obtained as part of the Kindytxt registration process were then linked to each participant's SMS responses using their unique mobile phone number. The combined database was then transferred to IBM SPSS Statistics v 28 for further analysis. Given the nature of the fixed-response feedback items, data analyses were limited to crosstabulations, descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests. To test for statistical significance between the three socioeconomic groups, Pearson's chi-square test for independence was used for items measured at the nominal level and the Kruskall-Wallis H test was used for items measured at the ordinal level.</p> <p>The brief, voluntary comments received from parents via SMS were transferred to an Excel file and analysed via an iterative process of deductive and inductive coding (Miles et al., [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref103">41</reflink>]; Bingham, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref104">7</reflink>]). <emph>A priori</emph> codes were initially developed based on the literacy foci and issues probed by the feedback items. Through careful, repeated reading, participants' comments were colour-coded and then sorted into these initial categories. Inductive analysis was then used to develop codes/categories for responses that were not adequately represented by the a priori codes.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-9">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187863993-10">Book Sharing and Concepts About Print</hd> <p>At week 6 of the program, parents were asked whether they had tried any Kindytxt activities. Engagement with the activities appeared to be relatively high since more than 80% indicated they had already tried some or all of the book-sharing activities. Comparison based on socioeconomic status (Table 1) showed no significant difference between the three groups.</p> <p>Consistent with the aims of the overarching Better Beginnings program, Kindytxt encouraged parents to take their child(ren) to the local library to foster a love of books and reading and help broaden their exposure to a wider range of reading material. At week 12, we therefore asked parents whether they had visited a library with their child in the past 3 months. High CSES parents (70%) were more likely than the low (52%) and medium (57%) CSES parents to have made at least one library visit with their child in that period (Table 1), though these differences were not statistically significant. The question may have prompted parents, however, as many respondents indicated they were intending to take their child to a library.</p> <p>Table 1 Parental engagement with the Kindytxt book-sharing activities (week 6), and visiting the local library (week 12) by community socioeconomic status</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Item</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Community Socioeconomic Status</p></th><th align="left" rowspan="2" colspan="3"><p>Pearson chi-square test</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>Low</p></th><th align="left"><p>Medium</p></th><th align="left"><p>High</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>%</p></th><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>%</p></th><th align="left"><p>χ<sup>2</sup> value</p></th><th align="left"><p>df</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>p</italic></p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p>Have you tried any of the Kindytxt activities with your child so far?</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, all or most of them</p></td><td align="left"><p>24.6</p></td><td align="left"><p>22.0</p></td><td align="left"><p>20.8</p></td><td char="." align="char" rowspan="4"><p>8.370</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>6</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>0.212</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, some of them</p></td><td align="left"><p>54.9</p></td><td align="left"><p>65.2</p></td><td align="left"><p>60.8</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Not yet, but I intend to</p></td><td align="left"><p>20.4</p></td><td align="left"><p>12.9</p></td><td align="left"><p>16.8</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> No, I won't be trying them out</p></td><td align="left"><p>-</p></td><td align="left"><p>-</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.6</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Total respondents (n)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(142)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(132)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(125)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>Have you taken your child to a library in the past 3 months?</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, more than once</p></td><td align="left"><p>36.8</p></td><td align="left"><p>38.9</p></td><td align="left"><p>55.9</p></td><td char="." align="char" rowspan="4"><p>10.779</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>6</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>0.095</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, once</p></td><td align="left"><p>15.4</p></td><td align="left"><p>17.6</p></td><td align="left"><p>14.0</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Not yet, but I intend to</p></td><td align="left"><p>37.5</p></td><td align="left"><p>35.9</p></td><td align="left"><p>22.6</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> No, I won't be visiting a library</p></td><td align="left"><p>10.3</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.6</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.5</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Total respondents (n)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(136)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(131)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(93)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>At week 9, parents were asked to rate the usefulness of the book sharing ideas on a scale of 0–10, with anchor points of 0="Not at all useful" and 10="Extremely useful". Most parents gave very favourable ratings (Median = 8, Mode = 8 or 10), with no significant difference between the parents' ratings based on community socioeconomic status (Table 2).</p> <p>Since the focus of the early sets of messages was on encouraging parents to incorporate more questioning and discussion in their shared reading sessions, at week 12 they were asked to rate the helpfulness of the activities for reading and speaking to their child (Table 2). Ratings were again relatively high, with no significant difference between the ratings of the three CSES groups.</p> <p>Table 2 Parents' perceptions of the usefulness of the Kindytxt book sharing ideas (week 9) and helpfulness of the activities for reading and speaking to their child (week 12) by community socioeconomic status</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Item</p></th><th align="left"><p>Ordinal scale </p><p>anchors</p></th><th align="left"><p>CSES</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>n</italic></p></th><th align="left"><p>Mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>Median</p></th><th align="left"><p>Mode</p></th><th align="left"><p>Std Dev.</p></th><th align="left"><p>Kruskal-Wallis </p><p>H Test</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>How useful have the book sharing ideas been?</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>0 = Not at all useful</p><p>10 = Extremely useful</p></td><td align="left"><p>Low</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>136</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.74</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.137</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>H(2) = 1.087, </p><p><italic>p</italic> = 0.581</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Medium</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>125</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.86</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.833</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>High</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>101</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.66</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.734</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>How helpful have you found the Kindytxt activities for reading and speaking to your child?</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>0 = Not at all helpful</p><p>10 = Extremely helpful</p></td><td align="left"><p>Low</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>139</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.26</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.026</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>H(2) = 0.357, </p><p><italic>p</italic> = 0.836</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Medium</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>133</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.34</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.063</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>High</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>96</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.40</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.786</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Further comments via SMS were sent by nine parents, each of whom had given high (9–10) or moderately high ratings (7–8) for the week 9 and week 12 items shown in Table 2. For example:... Because of this my little one loves to read! It used to be so hard to get her to settle down and listen and now she loves our reading times! (Medium CSES)I always try to use suggestions & tips from Kindytxt whenever we read books with my little one. Its very helpful. (High CSES)</p> <p>However, despite their moderately high ratings (<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref105">7</reflink>) for the items in Table 2, one parent disclosed that the book-sharing activities were too advanced for her child:thanks for your texts. I tried a few techniques from your message and found that some are not working for my daughter. She's happy to hear me reading a book but maybe it's too hard for her to do some deeper understanding such as predicting what's happening later. I think it might take a few more years for her to reach that level... (High CSES).</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-11">Phonemic and Phonological Awareness</hd> <p>Across weeks 14–21, parents were encouraged to help their child distinguish between the individual sounds in words and to link sounds to letters. At about the mid-way point (week 18), parents were asked if they had used any of these letter-sound activities with their child. More than 80% of respondents (<emph>n</emph> = 244/294) said they had used all or some of the activities. The low (83.8%, <emph>n</emph> = 98) and medium (86.3%, <emph>n</emph> = 80) CSES parents were a little more likely than the high CSES parents (78.0%, <emph>n</emph> = 70) to have tried some or all of the activities by that point, but the difference was not statistically significant (χ<sups>2</sups> (<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref106">6</reflink>, _I_n_i_ = 294) = 3.111, <emph>p =</emph> 0.795).</p> <p>In designing Kindytxt, there was some concern that the concepts of phonemes and letter sounds (as opposed to letter names) were difficult to convey via text messages. Hence, at week 18 we asked parents to rate how easy it was to understand and do the letter-sound activities with their child (0="Extremely hard" to 10="Extremely easy") (Table 3). Most parents reported they had no difficulty; less than 10% indicated they did struggle somewhat with these activities (i.e., ratings of 0–5 out of 10). There was no statistical difference between the ratings of the low, medium and high CSES parents.</p> <p>The focus of the SMS feedback items thus far had been on the parents themselves and the utility of the Kindytxt messages for their home literacy practices. At week 18, however, we asked parents to consider the influence of the Kindytxt activities on their child's development. Table 3 shows the parents' ratings in response to <emph>How helpful have the Kindytxt activities been for the development of your child's early speaking and reading?</emph> The overall ratings were very favourable, with medians of 8 for all three groups and no significant difference between them.</p> <p>Table 3 Parent perceptions regarding ease of understanding the letter-sound activities and helpfulness of the messages for their child's early speaking and reading development (week 18) by community socioeconomic status</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Item</p></th><th align="left"><p>Ordinal scale </p><p>anchors</p></th><th align="left"><p>CSES</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>n</italic></p></th><th align="left"><p>Mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>Median</p></th><th align="left"><p>Mode</p></th><th align="left"><p>Std Dev.</p></th><th align="left"><p>Kruskal-Wallis </p><p>H Test</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>How easy was it for you to understand and do the Kindytxt letter-sound activities with your child?</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>0 = Extremely hard</p><p>10 = Extremely easy</p></td><td align="left"><p>Low</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>110</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8.50</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>9</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.846</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>H(2) = 0.840, </p><p><italic>p</italic> = 0.657</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Medium</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>89</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8.64</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.890</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>High</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>78</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8.54</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>9</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.918</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>How helpful have the Kindytxt activities been for the development of your child's early speaking and reading?</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>0 = Not at all helpful</p><p>10 = Extremely helpful</p></td><td align="left"><p>Low</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>119</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.72</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.864</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>H(2) = 2.522, </p><p><italic>p</italic> = 0.283</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Medium</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>99</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.32</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.113</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>High</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>86</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.22</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.270</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0187863993-12">Oral Language Skills and Vocabulary</hd> <p>The focus of the week 22–25 activities was on encouraging children's oral language skills and building vocabulary. At week 24, parents were asked how many of the activities about talking with their child they had used so far, choosing from "all of the activities", "most of the activities", "a few of the activities" and "none of the activities". Although the low CSES parents (55.7%) were somewhat more likely to have used all or most of the activities than the medium (51.0%) and high (40.9%) CSES parents, the difference was not statistically significant (χ<sups>2</sups> (<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref107">6</reflink>, _I_n_i_ = 297) = 6.194, <emph>p =</emph> 0.402).</p> <p>Following the series of oral language activities (week 24), parents were invited to rate how helpful the Kindytxt activities had been for the development of their child's speaking (0="Not at all helpful" to 10="Extremely helpful"). The ratings were moderately high for all three groups (Median = 7) (Fig. 1), with no significant difference between them (H(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref108">2</reflink>) = 0.991, <emph>p</emph> = 0.609).</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 1 Parent perceptions of the helpfulness of the Kindytxt activities for developing their child's speaking (vocabulary) (Week 24) by community socioeconomic status</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-13">Literacy Focus and Message Type</hd> <p>At week 24, we asked parents to nominate the aspects of literacy for which they would like more ideas for activities with their child. Although presented as a multi-response item, parents answered this as a single-response item – most likely because this had been the dominant format of the items. The responses of the low, medium and high CSES parents were again relatively similar, with around 40% indicating they would like more of <emph>all</emph> aspects of early literacy (Table 4). The highest single aspect categories were ideas for learning words and ideas for learning letter sounds.</p> <p>At week 27, parents were asked to nominate the type(s) of Kindytxt messages they liked best (Activity-Friday, Information-Saturday, Extension-Sunday, All three types). Despite being a multi-response question, parents again gave single answers. A majority of parents in each CSES group said they would like more of all three message types (Table 4). Some other minor differences in preferences seemed evident (e.g., high CSES parents were less likely to nominate "Information" messages) but were not statistically significant.</p> <p>Table 4 Parent perceptions of the content of the Kindytxt messages by community socioeconomic status</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Items</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Community Socioeconomic Status</p></th><th align="left" rowspan="2" colspan="3"><p>Pearson Chi-Squared Test</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>Low</p></th><th align="left"><p>Medium</p></th><th align="left"><p>High</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>%</p></th><th align="left"><p>%</p></th><th align="left"><p>%</p></th><th align="left"><p>χ<sup>2</sup> value</p></th><th align="left"><p>df</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>p</italic></p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" colspan="4"><p>Week 24: Which types of shared activities would you like more examples of?</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Ways to share books</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.4</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.8</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.6</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="6"><p>5.720</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="6"><p>10</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="6"><p>0.838</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Ideas for talking with my child</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.2</p></td><td align="left"><p>14.3</p></td><td align="left"><p>13.7</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Ideas for helping my child learn words</p></td><td align="left"><p>19.3</p></td><td align="left"><p>20.2</p></td><td align="left"><p>15.1</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Ideas for learning letter sounds</p></td><td align="left"><p>19.3</p></td><td align="left"><p>13.1</p></td><td align="left"><p>16.4</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Ideas for learning letter names</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.4</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.0</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.7</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> All of the above</p></td><td align="left"><p>39.4</p></td><td align="left"><p>41.7</p></td><td align="left"><p>42.5</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Total respondents (n)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(109)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(84)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(73)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="4"><p>Week 27: Which type(s) of Kindytxt message did you like best?</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Activity</p></td><td align="left"><p>35.6</p></td><td align="left"><p>33.7</p></td><td align="left"><p>42.1</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>6.515</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>6</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>0.368</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Information</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.8</p></td><td align="left"><p>8.4</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.6</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Extension</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.9</p></td><td align="left"><p>11.6</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.3</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> All of the above</p></td><td align="left"><p>51.7</p></td><td align="left"><p>46.3</p></td><td align="left"><p>50.0</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Total respondents (n)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(118)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(95)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(76)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>A substantial portion (26.5%, <emph>n</emph> = 22) of the parents' comments were about the content of the Kindytxt messages. Four parents indicated how much they liked the activities, for example:It's been great having different prompts to chat about and different ways to help my child (Medium CSES).I am loving the activities to help [my son] learn as I was running out of ideas (High CSES).</p> <p>However, one parent (medium CSES) felt there was insufficient variety: "<emph>They are all very similar. Would be good to have some different activities</emph>,<emph>"</emph> while one medium CSES and two high CSES parents commented that the messages were too frequent.</p> <p>Five parents (2 low CSES, 3 high CSES) felt the Kindytxt activities were too simple because their child could already read, and three parents (2 low CSES, 1 high CSES) said the activities were unnecessary because the school was teaching their child these literacy skills. One parent suggested the program was better suited to a younger age group:I feel this program should be done BEFORE starting kindy, aimed at 3 year olds? My daughter is 5 already reading...I have been doing them with my 2 year old daughter also (High CSES).</p> <p>Interestingly, one parent was alarmed that the program is needed at all:Do people really need to be told this information? It's quite worrying!! (Medium CSES)</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-14">Sharing and Discussion of Kindytxt</hd> <p>At week 9 parents were asked if they had shared the messages with others and whether they had discussed the messages with their child's kindergarten teacher(s) (Table 5). The majority of parents in all three socioeconomic groups (≥ 57%) had not shared the text messages. Those parents who had shared them mostly did so with their partner or spouse. While not statistically significant (<emph>p</emph> = 0.090), the low CSES parents were less likely than the other parents to share the messages with a partner/spouse, but more likely to share them with other family members and friends. This may be indicative of a higher proportion of single-parent families among the low CSES group since it is one of the 16 factors used to derive the IRSD.</p> <p>Overall, very few parents (< 20%) had any discussion with their child's kindergarten teacher(s) regarding the Kindytxt messages. Of those parents that had at least one discussion, proportionately more were from the low CSES group than the medium and high CSES groups (20.4%, 14.8% and 7.2%, respectively), though the differences did not reach statistical significance (<emph>p</emph> = 0.066).</p> <p>Table 5 Parental engagement in sharing and discussing the Kindytxt messages (week 9) by community socioeconomic status</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Items</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Community Socioeconomic Status</p></th><th align="left" rowspan="2" colspan="3"><p>Pearson Chi-Squared Test</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>Low</p></th><th align="left"><p>Medium</p></th><th align="left"><p>High</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>%</p></th><th align="left"><p>%</p></th><th align="left"><p>%</p></th><th align="left"><p>χ<sup>2</sup> value</p></th><th align="left"><p>df</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>p</italic></p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" colspan="7"><p>Have you shared any of the text messages with others?</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, my partner/spouse</p></td><td align="left"><p>21.2</p></td><td align="left"><p>30.6</p></td><td align="left"><p>34.3</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>10.939</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>6</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>0.090</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, other family member(s)</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.1</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.1</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.0</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, friends or other parents</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.6</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.5</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.1</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> No, I haven't shared them</p></td><td align="left"><p>62.1</p></td><td align="left"><p>62.8</p></td><td align="left"><p>56.6</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Total respondents (n)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(132)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(121)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(99)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="7"><p>Have you had any discussion about the Kindytxt messages with your child's kindergarten teacher?</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, many times</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.6</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.9</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.1</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>11.815</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>6</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>0.066</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, a few times</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.4</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.3</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.0</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> Yes, once</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.4</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.6</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.1</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p> No, not at all</p></td><td align="left"><p>79.5</p></td><td align="left"><p>85.2</p></td><td align="left"><p>92.8</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Total respondents (n)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(127)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(115)</p></td><td align="left"><p>(97)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The week 9 items about sharing and discussion prompted comments from three participants. One low CSES parent noted <emph>"I have some friends who definitely find it helpful"</emph> while another high CSES parent asked: "<emph>Can I pass this phone to a friend of mind that I believe will love to have the messages"?</emph></p> <hd id="AN0187863993-15">Overview of the Kindytxt Program</hd> <p>In the final weeks of the program, we sought feedback about the potential ongoing influence of Kindytxt. At week 27, parents were asked how likely they were to keep doing the Kindytxt activities with their child (0="Extremely unlikely" to 10="Extremely likely") (Table 6). Ratings were quite positive for all three groups of parents (Median = 7 or 8, Mode = 8). Although the low and medium CSES parents were more likely than the high CSES parents to give ratings of 9 or 10, the differences were not statistically significant.</p> <p>To determine whether families had increased their home literacy practices, we asked parents to indicate their level of agreement with the statement, <emph>Because of the Kindytxt program</emph>,<emph> I now spend more time reading and talking with my child</emph> (0="Strongly disagree" to 10="Strongly agree"). The median ratings were moderately favourable (Table 6), and although the low and medium CSES parents (Median = 7) were in stronger agreement than the high CSES parents (Median = 6) this was not statistically significant.</p> <p>To gauge the influence of the Kindytxt program on parents' knowledge of early literacy development, we asked them to rate their agreement with the statement, <emph>From the Kindytxt program</emph>,<emph> I have learned new information about reading and speaking to my child</emph> (Table 6). Ratings were again high (Median = 8, Mode = 10), with approximately 30% of parents from low, medium and high socioeconomic communities giving the highest rating (10="Strongly agree").</p> <p>The final feedback sought from parents was how likely they were to recommend the Kindytxt program to others (0="Extremely unlikely" to 10="Extremely likely") (Table 6). Ratings were very high (Median = 8 or 9, Mode = 10), with more than 40% of low, medium and high CSES parents choosing the highest rating.</p> <p>Table 6 Low versus high CSES parents' ratings of items related to the overall influence of Kindytxt</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Items</p></th><th align="left"><p>Ordinal scale anchors</p></th><th align="left"><p>CSES</p></th><th align="left"><p><italic>n</italic></p></th><th align="left"><p>Mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>Median</p></th><th align="left"><p>Mode</p></th><th align="left"><p>Std Dev.</p></th><th align="left"><p>Kruskal-Wallis </p><p>H Test</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Week 27: How likely are you to keep doing the Kindytxt activities?</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>0 = Extremely unlikely</p><p>10 = Extremely likely</p></td><td align="left"><p>Low</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>118</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>6.85</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.274</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>H(2) = 3.331, </p><p><italic>p</italic> = 0.189</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Medium</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>90</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.09</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.411</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>High</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>75</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>6.53</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.298</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Week 30: Because of the Kindytxt program, I now spend more time reading and talking with my child</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>0 = Strongly disagree</p><p>10 = Strongly agree</p></td><td align="left"><p>Low</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>107</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>6.33</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>5</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.659</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>H(2) = 3.912, </p><p><italic>p</italic> = 0.141</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Medium</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>89</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>6.44</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.734</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>High</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>86</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>5.71</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>6</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>5</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.794</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Week 30: From the Kindytxt program, I have learned new information about reading and speaking to my child.</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>0 = Strongly disagree</p><p>10 = Strongly agree</p></td><td align="left"><p>Low</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>108</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.79</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.145</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>H(2) = 0.729, </p><p><italic>p</italic> = 0.695</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Medium</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>90</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.91</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.296</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>High</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>88</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7.90</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.068</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Week 30: How likely are you to recommend the Kindytxt program to others?</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>0 = Extremely unlikely</p><p>10 = Extremely likely</p></td><td align="left"><p>Low</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>106</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8.02</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.330</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>H(2) = 1.821, </p><p><italic>p</italic> = 0.402</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Medium</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>89</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8.34</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>9</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.190</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>High</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>85</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>8.48</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>9</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.004</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>More than half (53.0%, <emph>n</emph> = 44) of the parent comments we received were in response to the final sets of items about the overall influence of Kindytxt. Of these, 17 messages (8 low, 5 medium, 4 high CSES) were generic positive comments, such as:Will miss your messages- thankyou so very much. Plz keep me in mind for other programs (Low CSES).</p> <p>Some parents (<emph>n</emph> = 9) mentioned that they had learned new tips or pointers for fostering their child's literacy skills:Although [my daughter] can already read...the tips do help directing her to new activities and answering questions...it helps with guidance and comprehension. (Low CSES)...I love the ideas, it's been helping stay motivated and build more connection with my Mr 4yo! (Medium CSES)</p> <p>A further nine parents described how Kindytxt had helped their child's progress. For example:[My son] is recognising all letters plus putting them together! We sound out all the time! Incredible program! (Low CSES).... I just wanted to let you know that [my daughter] tested top of her class in literacy last week. I attribute this to some of the work we've done with your programme. It's meant the world to building the confidence of a little girl with ASD who struggles with confidence. It meant the world. (Medium CSES)</p> <p>One parent pointed out the benefits of Kindytxt to working parents and suggested the program could be disseminated to families much earlier:I've really loved these; and think it would hugely help a lot of parents who are time limited with their kids due to work or access to resources. My girls and I have always read & talked a lot- but I love seeing the messages for ideas. The earlier parents could start the better- would love to see this rolled out with the child health nurses etc. (Low CSES)</p> <p>A further three low CSES parents did not respond to the Week 30 items, but instead messaged us to explain that although Kindytxt had not benefitted them, they could see how other parents might find it helpful. For example:Have always done most of these things anyway. So it was probably very helpful to a mum who hasn't (Low CSES).</p> <p>Finally, two low CSES parents who were educators themselves affirmed that Kindytxt would be of benefit to families:...I am an educator and know that most parents could benefit so please let me know if you repeat the program and I will refer families. (Low CSES)Great resource! As an early childhood professional these texts are great for encouraging literacy awareness in parents and their children (Low CSES).</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-16">Discussion</hd> <p>Kindytxt is a 30-week parent texting program that was designed and delivered as part of the Better Beginnings program offered to all kindergarten programs throughout Western Australia. The Kindytxt messages aimed to increase parents' early literacy knowledge and practices to better support their child's literacy development during the kindergarten year. Using a sociocultural lens, the findings from our initial pilot suggest that early literacy texting programs offered on a universal basis can be appropriate and beneficial for parents across <emph>all</emph> socioeconomic communities. The study therefore adds to the limited body of research on the receptivity of texting programs by parents from different socioeconomic communities, offers insights into the potential benefits of universal text messaging interventions, and challenges class-based deficit thinking about family involvement in literacy practices (Newman et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref109">43</reflink>]; Dudley-Marling, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref110">21</reflink>]).</p> <p>Parent engagement with the Kindytxt home literacy activities was relatively high and there were no significant differences based on community socioeconomic status. Parents from lower socioeconomic backgrounds can face greater challenges in engaging in learning activities with their children (Hurwitz et al., [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref111">30</reflink>]) since "the strains of poverty itself limit cognitive capacity for complex tasks" (Cortes et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref112">15</reflink>], p. 2), and factors such as inflexible or non-family-friendly work hours and being a single parent can restrict opportunities for engagement. However, this does not mean there is a lack of interest or engagement in their children's learning (Newman et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref113">43</reflink>]; Dudley-Marling, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref114">21</reflink>]). Our study bears this out since around four-fifths of parents in all three CSES groups indicated they had tried all/most or some of the activities about book sharing and concepts about print, and also letter sounds. Parent engagement with the activities focused on oral language and vocabulary was somewhat less strong; however, given the fundamental role of oral language in early literacy development it is reassuring that only 5% of parents indicated they had not used these activities at all.</p> <p>An important aim of Kindytxt and the overarching BB program is to foster links between families, schools and local libraries. As previously reported, parent uptake of Kindytxt was higher in schools where the link between Kindytxt and BB was made explicit and collaboration between the school and the local library was more evident (Barratt-Pugh et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref115">5</reflink>]). Hence, the parent responses regarding library visits are of particular interest. Although not statistically significant, the high CSES parents (70%) in our study were more likely than the medium (56%) and low CSES parents (52%) to have visited a library with their child during the first 3 months of the Kindytxt program. Interestingly, the Text2Learn program in the US (Meuwissen et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref116">40</reflink>]) which involved collaboration with two local library systems did not achieve an increase in parent library visits with their child. Given evidence which suggests that library-school collaboration can be influential in supporting parents' engagement in early literacy practices (Barratt-Pugh et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref117">6</reflink>]; Caspe & Lopez, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref118">11</reflink>]), further research, including detailed analysis at the community level (Sullivan, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref119">53</reflink>]), is needed to strengthen home-school-library connections and identify and address the barriers to library visiting among low socioeconomic families. In this regard, the social justice framework for public library services proposed by Lopez et al. ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref120">37</reflink>]) offers a useful starting point for "librarians...and others as they navigate the complexities of engaging with families in their local and regional settings" (p.596).</p> <p>A relatively high proportion of parents across all three CSES groups indicated they were likely to keep doing the Kindytxt activities. The ease of access to text messages means parents can revisit the suggested home literacy activities multiple times until they become part of everyday parent-child interactions and are used with younger siblings. While parents' level of agreement with the statement <emph>I now spend more time reading and talking with my child</emph> was somewhat lower than other feedback items, it is nevertheless promising that more than half gave positive ratings (≥ 6) suggesting Kindytxt has increased the level of parent-child engagement in literacy in those households, which is consistent with the findings from several controlled studies (Germeroth et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref121">26</reflink>]; Hurwitz et al., [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref122">30</reflink>]; Meuwissen et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref123">40</reflink>]).</p> <p>When asked which type of text message (Activity, Information and Extension) they liked best and which type(s) they would like to receive more of, parents mostly nominated all three message types. This is broadly consistent with other research (Cortes et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref124">14</reflink>]; Fricke et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref125">25</reflink>]) which supports the efficacy of three messages per week covering "bite-size" actionable advice (activity), context (information) and encouragement (extension). The literacy content of the Kindytxt messages was well-received by most parents, with no discernible differences based on CSES. Consistent with the recent Australian study involving mostly high SES families (Simoncini et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref126">49</reflink>]), a large majority of parents in our study agreed that they had learned new information about reading and speaking to their child. Notably, when asked to nominate the types of literacy activities they would like more examples of, most parents nominated "all". Parent ratings of the helpfulness of the activities for their child's early literacy development were consistently high and parents commented that the texts provided useful guidance and motivation or acted as reminders that then reinforced or extended their repertoire of home literacy practices.</p> <p>However, not all parents felt the text messages were pitched at the right level for their child. Although small in number, parent comments indicated the content was too simple for some children but too advanced for others. It is not feasible to design a universal texting program that will exactly suit the developmental needs of all children and their families. However, the embedding of Kindytxt within the BB program, which actively seeks to foster closer links between families, schools and local libraries, affords many possibilities for assisting parents to adapt and tailor home literacy activities to suit their child's needs. Parents can be directed to additional information available at the school, local library and BB website, and encouraged to talk to their child's kindergarten teacher and/or the local librarians responsible for supporting BB. It is also feasible to modularise the literacy content of the texting program and, at the registration stage, allow parents to nominate the areas for which they want support. In our previous reporting of Kindytxt uptake and attrition, we noted that parents are most likely to opt-out in the first 7 weeks of the program when messages are focused on simple ideas for sharing books and reinforcing children's concepts about print. Hence, parent concerns about the appropriateness of the content could be alleviated by including information in the registration flyers to make clear that the text messages will progress from relatively simple to more complex literacy skills and concepts.</p> <p>We have previously reported that teacher involvement was an important factor in enabling parents to access the Kindytxt program and that the Kindytxt content is directly linked to the WA kindergarten curriculum. Considering this, a somewhat unexpected result was that once enrolled in the texting program, very few parents (15%) said they had had any discussion about the Kindytxt messages with their child's kindergarten teacher. Of those parents who had discussed Kindytxt with the teacher, proportionately more were from low and medium SES communities than high SES communities (21%, 15% and 7%, respectively). Some parents commented on how Kindytxt had positively influenced their child's progress at school, suggesting that connections between home and school learning were emerging or recognised but not necessarily discussed. Previous research has shown that actively linking school and home learning can improve children's literacy outcomes (Snell et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref127">51</reflink>]). However, teachers need to be proactive in engaging with parents since, as Newman et al. ([<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref128">43</reflink>], p. 80) point out, parents largely operate in a "teacher-directed paradigm and don't yet see the possibilities for themselves as active agents in education". Further research is warranted to better understand teachers' perceptions of the value of texting programs and their role in promoting and reinforcing the links between classroom activities and the home literacy environment.</p> <p>A potentially important indicator of parent receptiveness of the Kindytxt program is that around 40% of parents in all three CSES groups shared the text messages with partners/spouses, other family members, and/or friends or other parents. This is a desirable outcome since, as Kraft and Monti-Nussbaum ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref129">33</reflink>]) argue, when parents, older siblings and other adults who interact with the child also receive the text messages, this can spark discussion and potentially "generate momentum for a focus on literacy development at home" (p.106) – and perhaps more broadly within the child's social milieu. As Snell et al. ([<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref130">50</reflink>]) point out, the ease with which text messages can be distributed and shared means their reach is likely greater than non-digital forms of information. A final positive indicator of parent receptiveness was that more than 40% of parents from all three CSES groups indicated they were "extremely likely" to recommend the Kindytxt program to others, and only 6% were unlikely to recommend it. This is consistent with other studies that used "likely to recommend the program" as an indicator of the perceived value of the texting program to parents (Germeroth et al., [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref131">26</reflink>]; Olson et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref132">46</reflink>]; Simoncini et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref133">49</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-17">Limitations</hd> <p>This study is based on self-report data and therefore prone to social desirability bias. Further, the conditions of our ethical and school-based research approvals precluded the collection of detailed demographic data from participants. Hence, it was necessary to use a community-level indicator of socioeconomic status as a proxy for individual socioeconomic status. While the IRSD is an important indicator of the prevailing socioeconomic conditions in a particular neighbourhood, it cannot be assumed that every family is experiencing the implied level of relative disadvantage. This study has not included control or comparison groups since our focus was on the receptiveness of the program by different socioeconomic groups within the target population. While parent ratings of the program were very favourable, and parents' comments indicated their delight at their child's progress, further research is needed to determine the longitudinal impact of Kindytxt on children's literacy outcomes.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-18">Conclusion and Implications</hd> <p>The results from this study show similarly high levels of parent receptiveness of an early literacy texting program by families living in low, medium and high SES communities. Parents from all three groups appeared to embrace the Kindytxt program as a means of augmenting their home literacy practices and enhancing their child's literacy development in the kindergarten year. These findings align with other studies that showed texting programs can enhance parent-child engagement in early learning activities within both low SES (Hurwitz et al., [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref134">30</reflink>]; York et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref135">55</reflink>]) and high SES (Simoncini et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref136">49</reflink>]) families.</p> <p>Kindytxt was developed as an integrated part of the universal, statewide Better Beginnings (BB) book gifting and family literacy program and, as such, taps into a well-established framework and infrastructure that enables wide reach. As a universal program, BB/Kindytxt avoids the possibility of stigma (and potentially lower uptake) that can sometimes be associated with programs that visibly target low socioeconomic families and avoids the need to collect and apply personal data about families to determine program eligibility (Hackworth et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref137">28</reflink>]; Hickey et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref138">29</reflink>]). Cost is often cited as a key reason for favouring targeted over universal interventions, however, the relatively low cost of texting programs and the ease with which they can be offered at large scale make a universal approach a viable option.</p> <p>Since parent participation in texting programs is voluntary, uptake by parents is not guaranteed. Realistically, no single texting program can meet every family's needs. However, the cooperative library-school model of program delivery on which BB and Kindytxt are based allows communities to adopt a "blended" approach whereby targeted strategies are incorporated within the universal program (Leseman & Slot, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref139">36</reflink>]). We have already seen that teachers can positively influence parent recruitment to Kindytxt (Barratt-Pugh et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref140">5</reflink>]). Both teachers and local librarians can play an important role in differentiating the Kindytxt content by advising and directing parents to resources that can help them modify the activities to better suit their child's cultural context and level of literacy development. In doing so, there is further potential to forge stronger connections with parents and increase inter-agency collaboration – all of which are shown to have positive benefits for children's education outcomes.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-19">Acknowledgements</hd> <p>We are grateful to the Research Assistants, Alia Parker, Christine Baxter and Dr Leanne Lavina, who provided support for the project and to the practising kindergarten teachers, local librarians, literacy experts and early childhood consultants who contributed to the co-design of the Kindytxt program.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-20">Funding</hd> <p>This work was supported by the Ian Potter Foundation [grant no. 31110220], Fogarty Foundation, and Association of Independent Schools of Western Australia.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-21">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187863993-22">Conflicts of Interest</hd> <p>The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.</p> <hd id="AN0187863993-23">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0187863993-24"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref9" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Adams A-M, Soto-Calvo E, Francis HN, Patel H, Hartley C, Giofrè D, Simmons FR. 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It also describes the older age group of a childcare setting.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Susan M. Hill; Caroline Barratt-Pugh; Nicola F. Johnson and Lennie Barblett</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author; Author; Author</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib38" firstref="ref2"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib43" firstref="ref3"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib19" firstref="ref5"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib23" firstref="ref6"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib45" firstref="ref7"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib48" firstref="ref8"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib22" firstref="ref10"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib44" firstref="ref12"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib17" firstref="ref13"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib30" firstref="ref14"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib31" firstref="ref15"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" bibid="bib39" firstref="ref16"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl14" bibid="bib13" firstref="ref18"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl15" bibid="bib20" firstref="ref19"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl16" bibid="bib40" firstref="ref20"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl17" bibid="bib46" firstref="ref21"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl18" bibid="bib51" firstref="ref22"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl19" bibid="bib55" firstref="ref23"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl20" bibid="bib16" firstref="ref24"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl21" bibid="bib14" firstref="ref25"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl22" bibid="bib15" firstref="ref26"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl23" bibid="bib25" firstref="ref27"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl24" bibid="bib50" firstref="ref28"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl25" bibid="bib52" firstref="ref29"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl26" bibid="bib33" firstref="ref36"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl27" bibid="bib34" firstref="ref39"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl28" bibid="bib28" firstref="ref42"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl29" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref43"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl30" bibid="bib49" firstref="ref65"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl31" bibid="bib26" firstref="ref68"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl32" bibid="bib24" firstref="ref81"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl33" bibid="bib36" firstref="ref82"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl34" bibid="bib47" firstref="ref84"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl35" bibid="bib54" firstref="ref85"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl36" bibid="bib21" firstref="ref88"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl37" bibid="bib12" firstref="ref92"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl38" bibid="bib18" firstref="ref93"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl39" bibid="bib32" firstref="ref94"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl40" bibid="bib35" firstref="ref95"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl41" bibid="bib42" firstref="ref96"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl42" bibid="bib27" firstref="ref98"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl43" bibid="bib41" firstref="ref103"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl44" bibid="bib11" firstref="ref118"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl45" bibid="bib53" firstref="ref119"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl46" bibid="bib37" firstref="ref120"></nolink>
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  Group: ISSN
  Data: 1082-3301<br />1573-1707
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: The home literacy environment (HLE) plays an important role in children's early literacy learning. Texting programs are an increasing feature of family literacy interventions that support parent engagement in their children's learning. Unlike face-to-face interventions, texting programs can offer sustained parental support at low cost and large scale. Messages can be translated into other languages, saved and shared, thus potentially widening the influence on children's HLEs. Most early literacy texting programs target families from disadvantaged communities, yet research suggests all families may benefit from guidance on supporting their children's early literacy. This study examined the receptiveness of a universal early literacy texting program, Kindytxt, by parents of kindergarten children from low, medium and high socioeconomic communities. Kindytxt was developed as a component of a universal book gifting program that uses a library-school model of program delivery and has statewide reach. Parents received 90 texts over 30 weeks and were invited to provide feedback via SMS at several intervals. Non-parametric tests were used to compare parent responses based on community-level socioeconomic status. Similarly high levels of parental support were evident across all socioeconomic strata. We argue that a universal approach can avoid the stigma and potentially lower uptake of programs that target disadvantaged families. Moreover, the Kindytxt cooperative delivery model allows targeted strategies to be incorporated within the universal program. Teachers and librarians can proactively bolster recruitment to the texting program and support parents to differentiate the literacy activities to suit their child's cultural context and level of literacy development.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1483250
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1483250
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1007/s10643-024-01788-5
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 15
        StartPage: 2767
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Parent Attitudes
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Telecommunications
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Handheld Devices
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Emergent Literacy
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Family Programs
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Socioeconomic Status
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Program Attitudes
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Kindergarten
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Receptiveness of the Kindytxt Universal Early Literacy Texting Program by Parents from Low, Medium, and High Socioeconomic Communities
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Susan M. Hill
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Caroline Barratt-Pugh
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Nicola F. Johnson
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Lennie Barblett
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 10
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 1082-3301
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1573-1707
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 53
            – Type: issue
              Value: 7
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Early Childhood Education Journal
              Type: main
ResultId 1