Spreading the Joy of Literacy: A community-based survey of parents by parents

Background: Literacy is an important social determinant of health. Failure to develop emergent literacy skills before kindergarten is a risk factor for academic failure, poverty, incarceration, and early death. Reading comprehension depends on both language comprehension and alphabetic decoding skills. The Home Literacy Environment literature tends to focus on reading aloud to develop oral language but less is known about letter-themed tools. Design: Our hypothesis was that letter-themed toys and books would be acceptable to all families but that lower socio-economic status (SES) households would be less likely to have them. Using methods of Community Based Participatory Research, 3 caregivers with young children living in the City of Rochester, NY, completed IRB training and provided cultural context for decisions throughout this study. We surveyed a convenience sample of 156 caregivers at 10 community events. We showed a poster with pictures of alphabet-themed toys and asked caregivers to count how many they had in the home. ZIP code was used as a proxy for SES. Results: We surveyed 156 caregivers, excluding 13 responses because of missing information. Of the 143 remaining, 139 (97.2%) thought it was important that a child know most of the alphabet letters before kindergarten. 1 in 4 of our respondents didn’t have a single literacy toy in their home and an additional 1 in 6 had only one. We calculated a p value of 0.0004 for the hypothesis that there is a difference by SES in the number of these items in the home. Conclusions: Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that joyful letter-themed tools are acceptable to parents in general but that low-SES households are less likely to have them. Closing the gap in early alphabet exposure could contribute to reducing inequities in school success and lifelong health.