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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2024 Aug 1;14(1):17822.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-68903-9.

Effectiveness of a community-led shared book reading intervention in Syrian refugee children: a randomised controlled trial

Kristin Hadfield  1 , Mays Al-Hamad  2 , Rana Dajani  3 , Amal El Kharouf  4 , Julia Michalek  5 , Lina Qtaishat  6 , Sophie von Stumm  7 , Isabelle Mareschal  5
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Effectiveness of a community-led shared book reading intervention in Syrian refugee children: a randomised controlled trial

Kristin Hadfield et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Community-led, shared book reading programs may help improve refugee children's reading abilities and attitudes towards reading. We Love Reading (WLR)-a light-touch, community-led, shared book reading program-was evaluated in a pre-registered, wait-listed, randomised controlled trial (AEARCTR-0006523). 322 Syrian refugee mother-child dyads (children: 4-8-year-olds, 50.0% female) in Jordan were tested at two timepoints, 15 weeks apart. WLR did not significantly affect child literacy or child-reported child attitudes toward reading (ps > 0.05). Mothers did report improved child attitudes toward reading from WLR (p = 0.046, η2 = 0.013). The intervention did not lead to improvements in family relationships (ps > 0.05). WLR may have promise in improving attitudes toward reading in forcibly displaced children but did not affect literacy or child-reported attitudes toward reading; these results provide insight into what changes are needed for effective shared book reading interventions in this population.

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Conflict of interest statement

Co-author Dajani is the Director of the Taghyeer Foundation, which implements the We Love Reading intervention. Co-author Qtaishat currently works at the Taghyeer Foundation. Co-author Al-Hamad worked at Taghyeer during data collection but left that organisation prior to the drafting of this manuscript. While this could represent a conflict of interest given that we are evaluating We Love Reading in this manuscript and Taghyeer implements this intervention, we obviated this in a few ways. First, we pre-registered the RCT ahead of collecting any data. Second, we pre-registered the RCT analysis ahead of conducting any analyses of the intervention. Third, we have shared our dataset, dataset guide, syntax etc. on the study’s OSF page (https://osf.io/gcv5z/), for transparency. The other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effects of We Love Reading on child literacy and child attitudes toward reading. *Significant difference between the pattern of change for the treatment and control group from baseline to endline. Error bars represent standard errors.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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