Read to Me

Abstract

Read to Me is a pilot campaign that encourages parents to read more frequently with their preschool children. It was conceived by four final-year students from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University. From our research, we found that most parents did not engage in shared reading daily, thus denying their children significant advantages, including stronger language and literacy skills, improved social and emotional skills, nurturing a love for books, and quality parent-child bonding. This paper summarises the campaign’s development, execution, and evaluation. The Theory of Planned Behaviour was used to guide the campaign, where we focused on identifying parents’ attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control towards shared reading. From our primary research, we identified two key barriers towards shared reading - the inability to get a child’s attention and the lack of time. Our campaign focused on improving parents’ perceived behavioural control through a two-pronged strategy to help parents make shared reading more engaging and more frequent. We collaborated with six preschools to target parents with children between ages three to six. These parents were exposed to our Reading Challenge, workshops, and online resources. The campaign’s effectiveness was evaluated through surveys, interviews, media coverage, and testimonials. Read to Me achieved some success in helping parents overcome their barriers, leading to an increase in the percentage of parents who engaged in shared reading at least thrice a week. Owing to the campaign’s effectiveness, the Association of Early Childhood Educators Singapore (AECES) will take over the campaign.