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

Publication Number: 1180.191

Sarah Collins-McGowan, Golisano Children's Hospital at The University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, United States; Andrew Aligne, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY, United States; Kelly F. McDermott, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Fairport, NY, United States; Candace E. Cabral, Golisano Children's Hospital at The University of Rochester Medical Center, ROCHESTER, NY, United States; Melissa Lomack, Golisano Children's Hospital at The University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, United States; Ana Ramos, Golisano Children's Hospital at The University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, United States

Background: Literacy is an important social determinant of health. Literacy promotion is an essential part of pediatric care. Failure to develop emergent literacy skills before kindergarten is a risk factor for academic failure, poverty, and early death. Reading comprehension depends on both language comprehension and decoding skills. The Home Literacy Environment (HLE) literature tends to focus on reading aloud to develop vocabulary. Less is known about letter-themed tools for learning the alphabet.

Objective: Our primary objective was to determine if there were differences by socio-economic status (SES) among parents regarding the acceptability and accessibility of early-literacy toys in the homes of preschool children. Our hypothesis was that all families would want these items but that low-SES families would be much less likely to have them.

Design/Methods: This study was developed as Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). 3 caregivers with young children completed IRB training and provided cultural context for study decisions. We surveyed a convenience sample of 156 caregivers at 10 community events with a brief, anonymous instrument. We showed a poster with pictures of items and asked caregivers to count how many they had at home. ZIP code was used as a proxy for SES at the recommendation of our community advisors and because of local economic segregation. Before analyzing the data, we decided to compare people who had 0 items with those who had 5 or more. We dichotomized zip codes by income as a conservative approach for detecting statistical significance.

Results: We surveyed 156 caregivers, excluding 13 responses that were missing zip code or had a primary residence out of state. Among these 143, 139 (97.2%) thought it was important that a child know most of the letters before kindergarten. There was wide variation in how many literacy items people had in the home, with 25% of respondents having 0. Using Fisher's exact test we calculated a p value of 0.0073 for the hypothesis that there is a difference by SES in the number of these items in the home.

Conclusion(s): The results of this study are consistent with our hypothesis that joyful tools for promoting emergent literacy skills are acceptable to parents but that low-SES households are less likely to have them. To our knowledge, our study is the first to look specifically at alphabet toys in the HLE. Future research is needed to establish the impact of providing alphabet tools to low-SES children on kindergarten readiness and literacy. Closing the gap in early alphabet exposure could contribute to reducing gaps in school success and lifelong health.

Poster of items used in study
This poster was used to ask caregivers to count how many of these types of items they had in their home.

Distribution of literacy items in the home
A wide variation in how many literacy items people had in the home was noted, with 25% having none at all.

2x2 table of dichotomized distribution of literacy items vs zip code
Using Fisher's exact test (GraphPad QuickCalcs, 2024) we calculated a p value of 0.0073 for the hypothesis that there is a difference by SES in the number of these items in the home.