In the UK, a significant number of children start school with language skills below what is expected for their age (Bercow, 2018) with concerning reports of further increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic (YouGov, 2022). Recent nursery closures and social restrictions as a response to COVID-19 have reduced learning opportunities for children (Araujo et al., 2021) and UK funding for schools has been significantly reduced despite the increase in the number of children needing additional learning support (YouGov, 2020). As a result, the number of UK children with additional learning needs has increased significantly over recent years and, currently, almost half of UK children fail to meet typical developmental milestones in communication, language and personal, social, or emotional development at school entry (YouGov, 2020). Many children with additional learning needs live in socially disadvantaged circumstances and experience more frequent developmental delays that are clearly identifiable by age 5 (Ofsted, 2014). This is a public health concern as poor cognitive and social/emotional development at age 5 are strongly correlated with longer term academic underachievement, mental and physical health difficulties, poor social skills and unemployment (Jones et al., 2015).

Communication and language skills are the strongest predictors of school readiness (Çakıroğlu, 2018) and are the underpinning skills needed for executive function and social/emotional competencies (Slot and von Suchodoletz, 2018; Wolf and McCoy, 2019). Children who meet their developmental milestones in language and communication at age 5 can play, talk, listen, understand, and pay attention, allowing them to fully engage in their learning environment (Adams et al., 2005). The attainment of language skills primarily depends on exposure to child directed speech from caregivers during the preschool years (Zeanah et al., 2011; Golinkoff et al., 2019) and is strongly influenced by the level of interactive dialog that children are exposed to with adults in their immediate environment (Eun, 2010).

Dialogic book sharing (DBS) involves interactive discourses, in which the adult follows the child’s interest, and is associated with prolonged joint attending by providing a rich and effective environment for promoting child development (Doyle and Bramwell, 2006). DBS interventions are usually delivered to caregivers in small groups over several sessions in which key strategies are demonstrated through facilitator support, modeling, viewing video tapes, and role playing or practicing the strategies taught. In addition, picture books and summary sheets are typically provided containing key points from each session to enable home practice (Dowdall et al., 2020).

Dialogic book sharing has shown promise in terms of developing pre-school children’s skills associated with school readiness (Cooper et al., 2015; Vally et al., 2015; Murray et al., 2016). During DBS caregivers encourage children to become the storyteller through open questioning, expansion of children’s utterances, praise, and encouragement, linking book content to the child’s experience, and labeling objects within the book (Arnold et al., 1994). This involves sensitively supporting children’s interest by engaging them in reciprocal interactions over the content of picture books (Murray et al., 2016). These interpersonal interactions increase children’s interest in books and foster higher-level thinking, and an ability to engage in extended discourse, promoting more diverse vocabulary than is achieved by reading to children (Van Kleeck, 2014). Evidence for DBS is so strong that it has been termed a ‘vocabulary acquisition device’ (Ninio, 1983; Barcroft et al., 2021), laying the groundwork for children’s successful social/emotional expression and understanding (Murray et al., 2016).

Pre-school programs that teach DBS strategies to parents demonstrate accelerated child development outcomes (Blom-Hoffman et al., 2007; Mol et al., 2009; Brannon et al., 2013; Murray et al., 2016; Towson et al., 2016; Dowdall et al., 2020) and may be a cost-effective and financially viable way to increase children’s school readiness (Whitehurst et al., 1994; Dowdall et al., 2020). Several well controlled studies, mainly carried out in the US, have demonstrated that carers can be trained to engage in high quality dialogic reading, and that, when such training is provided, there are significant benefits to child development (Blom-Hoffman et al., 2007; Brannon et al., 2013). Furthermore, in recent years, there has been increasing cross-cultural evidence of the gains of training parents in DBS skills. For example, Knauer et al. (2019) taught parents in Kenya to talk about pictures in books and found improved parental and child vocabulary with children of illiterate caregivers benefiting just as much as children of literate caregivers. Similar gains have been reported from Mexico, Bangladesh, China, Brazil, South Africa, and New Zealand (Valdez-Menchaca and Whitehurst, 1992; Chow et al., 2008; Opel et al., 2009; Cooper et al., 2015; Weisleder et al., 2018; Scott et al., 2020). These studies strengthen the evidence for the benefits of DBS training for parents in improving child language skills during the pre-school period.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of DBS interventions found that improved parental DBS competence during training facilitated the reciprocal exchanges required to nurture children’s expressive and receptive language ability (Dowdall et al., 2020). Effects were unrelated to caregiver education or child age; however, positive outcomes were mediated by program length. Another important finding was that group-based DBS interventions were significantly more effective in improving child language outcomes than one to one interventions. This may be because group-based DBS training provides a supportive environment and promotes active engagement, in which participants also benefit from the social capital of the group (Beschorner and Hutchison, 2016).

In the UK Murray et al. (2023) adapted and tested a new version of their program for parents of younger children in a randomized controlled trial with 218 caregivers of children aged 2.5 to 4 years. Parents were recruited through children’s centers in the most deprived areas of Reading and the study evaluated the impact of the intervention on child cognitive (language, attention, and executive function) and social/emotional development, and on parenting strategies. Intention to treat and per-protocol analysis showed no significant post-intervention impact in terms of child outcomes, although there were some effect size benefits, but significant effects were found for relevant parenting behaviors. An analysis of outcomes for the engaged group (59% of the sample) showed that the intervention produced a significant effect for child expressive language and comprehension, however, it appeared that the engaged sample were from a predominantly high income group further reinforcing the need for developing effective strategies to target the most vulnerable families.

Home-school relationships are significant predictors of children’s academic attainment (Rimm-Kaufman et al., 2000; Kingston et al., 2013) as well as a smooth transition into school (Carlton and Winsler, 1999) regardless of child age or ethnic origin (Wilder, 2014). Engaging families in the learning process from the very beginning maximizes children’s developmental outcomes (Bridgemohan et al., 2005). In addition, strong home/school partnerships increase parental satisfaction and efficacy and supports teachers with their work (Epstein, 2010) whereas lack of parental involvement in their education negatively affects children’s perception of school and ambition to achieve (Sheppard, 2009). One of the greatest challenges to building effective home/school links is engaging parents who experience poverty, isolation, and poor mental health, as these reduce the parental resources needed to fulfill the parenting role (Skreden et al., 2012; Azmoude et al., 2015). Research into ways of promoting home/school partnerships is limited and inconsistent (Welsh et al., 2014), consequently, it is important to identify ways to support parents, particularly socially disadvantaged parents, to reduce home/school communication barriers that influence children’s successful transition into school. Strategies are needed to encourage parental involvement as their children start school. Providing the parents of children with additional learning needs with the skills and resources needed to develop their language and communication skills could support children’s school readiness and build effective home-school partnerships.

This paper reports on the first feasibility study of school-based delivery of the Books Together program for parents of 3–5-year-olds (Murray et al., 2018). It explored feasibility and exploratory outcomes for children and parents.

In terms of feasibility, schools committed staff time for the training, recruitment of parents and for program delivery. They recruited parents of children whom they believed might benefit through direct contact. This approach recruited four parents in each school. Parenting programs do not always reach the families who could most benefit, and collaborative approaches are needed to ensure that families most likely to benefit are recruited (Williams et al., 2020). The results from this trial showed that using a proactive approach, targeting and contacting those whose children were considered most in need, produced successful recruitment of families of children for whom both the school and parents had concerns. Given that parental engagement in children’s education is a key factor in school success (Kingston et al., 2013) establishing how to encourage increased parental involvement, particularly among a group of parents that are least likely to engage with schools is important. Typically, high attrition rates in parenting programs remain a problem (Chacko et al., 2016) but in this study, parent retention was excellent with all 16 parents completing the program with a mean attendance of 6.19 sessions. School staff reported the program as acceptable, enjoyable, and easy to deliver. School staff reported that they would like to continue to deliver the program confirming that it is a feasible and acceptable intervention for school-based delivery. However, some delivery barriers were reported including practical considerations such as timing, lack of school resources to deliver and technical difficulties. This suggests that school procedures and video software may need to be refined to address the practicalities of school-based delivery of the program. Furthermore, school facilitators reported group management challenges. Facilitator training did not include group leadership skills training and no supervision was provided during program delivery. Given the complex needs of the families recruited, group leadership skills training and supervision with a skilled practitioner during program delivery may address the gaps in the skill set required to manage the group setting more effectively (Flay et al., 2005; Falender, 2018). Despite the barriers, the null attrition rate and high parental engagement suggests that the Books Together program may be an acceptable and feasible parenting intervention to positively engage schools, parents, and children.

Similar to other DBS studies, this study reports significant improvements in children’s expressive language, pro-social behavior, and social/emotional competence (Cooper et al., 2015; Murray et al., 2016; Dowdall et al., 2020). The study also reported a significant improvement in observed positive, and a significant reduction in observed negative, parenting strategies and competence. Despite the small sample size the effect sizes ranged from medium to large demonstrating that the magnitude of the result transfers over from being statistically significant to effective in practice in the real world, representing real benefit for children and parents (Aarts et al., 2014). However, the lack of control group suggests that caution should be taken in interpreting the results, particularly given that a recent RCT of the same intervention delivered by children’s center staff found no significant effects for child outcomes (Murray et al., 2023).

Despite UK early intervention initiatives children are still arriving at school, and in increasing numbers, without the school readiness skills that will enable them to benefit long term in an educational environment. Schools can identify these children, and do implement interventions for them, however, the home influence is still the strongest predictor of academic outcomes and parent involvement in children’s school life is also impacts on children’s outcomes regardless of child and family characteristics. Delivery of this program to targeted parents as a supportive intervention to help their children in school was successful in recruiting parents of children who benefited from the intervention. The school setting also made delivery easy as the children were on hand for the rehearsal part of the program. Despite the limitations this is the first trial that we are aware of that explores delivery of a DBS program by school based staff to parents of identified high risk school aged children. The preliminary findings are positive and justify a larger, more rigorous RCT trial. The process of delivering to parents during their children’s early school years has several benefits. It builds home-school links, it teaches skills to both parents and school-based staff, school-based staff can encourage parents of children with language and communication needs and the children are accessible for the second half of the session obviating the need for childcare. Therefore, current findings support the need for more rigorous future research to explore the benefits of school-based delivery of the program on parental strategies and wellbeing, and children’s school readiness skills.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving humans were approved by the Bangor University School of Psychology Ethics Review Committee. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardians/next of kin.

MW: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review and editing. CO: Formal Analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Writing – original draft. JH: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review and editing.