La lecture partagée : un levier pour réduire les inégalités scolaires ? L’évaluation par expérimentation aléatoire d’un dispositif dans des écoles maternelles

This policy brief presents the evaluation of an intervention aimed at promoting shared book reading to foster the language development of children from disadvantaged families. The literature indicates that early language skills are essential for the cognitive development and school success of children. However, these skills are unequally distributed across social groups, owing to the differential parental investments in their children's skills. Shared book reading illustrates this dynamic, as it is much more frequent among the high-educated. Our randomised experiment assessed the impact of an intervention aimed at fostering shared book reading by providing information and practical suggestions to enhance the frequency and quality of parent-child interactions around books, particularly in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Our results indicate that this intervention has the potential to reduce social gaps in shared book reading frequency and in children's language development, thus fostering a reduction of socio-economic differentials in educational success.