The Imagination Library Program and Kindergarten Readiness

Abstract

Literature suggests that reading to children can have a significant impact on their early literacy development and long-term school performance. We examine whether consistent participation (i.e., three or more years) in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (DPIL), a book distribution program that provides one book per month to children ages birth through five, is associated with higher kindergarten readiness. This study examines 2,731 incoming kindergartners in the Syracuse City School District in 2013 and 2014 using the AIMSweb Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) test to assess kindergarten readiness. LNF is frequently identified as the best single indicator of risk for reading failure and has been shown to have a strong ability to predict future reading, vocabulary, and language development. Examining both the entire population and propensity score matched groups, we find that a significantly higher percentage of those consistently participating in DPIL were considered as ready for kindergarten. This difference remained even after controlling for key demographic variables.

Keywords

kindergarten readiness book distribution evaluation community intervention imagination library

Recent years have seen a shift in public education policy that has resulted in greater emphasis on early childhood literacy. The passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLF) legislation has put pressure on schools to ensure that children are reading on target by third grade (NCLF 2002), while “race to the top” funding has pressured states to include student performance information as part of their teacher evaluations beginning as early as kindergarten (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009). Recent adoption by states of the Common Core State Standards further highlights the rising stakes communities face when it comes to having their children perform well on tests. This amalgam of institutional change has enticed school districts to identify and eliminate educational barriers as early as possible to avoid the snowballing of deficits that emerge during the early years.

In addition to shifts in educational policy, national philanthropic interest has led to a focus on the early years of education as large groups of funders rally around movements such as the Campaign for Grade Level Reading and Too Small to Fail. The Campaign for Grade Level Reading supports a community approach to kindergarten readiness, attendance, and reducing summer learning loss so that children are reading on level by third grade (Campaign for Grade Level Reading 2015). Similarly, Too Small to Fail “aims to help parents and businesses take meaningful actions to improve the health and well-being of children ages zero to five, so that more of America’s children are prepared to succeed in the 21st century” (Too Small to Fail 2015). Indeed, philanthropic interest in the early years of life is not entirely new, as evidenced by initiatives such as the United Way’s Success By 6 and the related Early Development Instrument launched in 1991. However, in the context of educational reforms and the persistent challenges that face American schools, such initiatives have taken on a greater sense of urgency.

Much of the private and philanthropic interest in reforming the educational pipeline stems from the growing body of literature that connects early childhood education outcomes to subsequent educational and societal outcomes (Heckman 2006, 2011). Recent reports have confirmed the findings that children who are not kindergarten ready are much less likely to read well by third grade (Applied Survey Research 2010; Ready Nation 2014; United Way of Greater Cincinnati 2012), and, in turn, that children who are not reading proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to drop out of school (Hernandez 2012). Punctuating this is the 2013 release by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of the results of its Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), which suggests that the U.S. workforce is falling behind those of other competing nations in literacy skills (OECD 2013). Consequently, a reasonable question facing many communities centers on the identification of efficient and cost-effective ways to break this cycle through early intervention. In this paper, we explore one such effort adopted by an increasing number of communities internationally: the implementation of an early childhood book distribution program.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (DPIL) program is an early childhood intervention program that is underwritten by the Dollywood Foundation with a mission of instilling “the love of learning and reading in children from the earliest age possible” (The Dollywood Foundation 2015). The central component of this program is a book distribution strategy in which an age-appropriate book is mailed each month to participants from birth through five years of age. In essence, DPIL seeks to catalyze parental involvement in children’s early education by providing materials (i.e., age-appropriate books) that encourage parental involvement in early literacy development. The provision of age-appropriate books is intended to catalyze family reading events in which adult caregivers read to a child from the book that arrived with the child’s name on it. Together, the arrival of the book and the ensuing reading experience are intended to create a positive social and emotional culture around reading and the written text that might, in turn, lead to the educational gains noted in educational and psychological literature (Ridzi, Sylvia, and Singh 2014; Singh 2015; Singh, Sylvia, and Ridzi 2015; Yeager and Walton 2011).

Literature on Book Distribution Interventions

The theoretical underpinnings of the DPIL program and similar book distribution programs are supported by a growing body of literature on brief psychology-based intervention strategies that target subjective experiences (Kenthirarajah and Walton 2015; Paunesku et al. 2015; Walton 2014; Yeager and Walton 2011). Such literature suggests that brief interventions that target children’s thoughts, beliefs, and feelings about school and school-related materials can result in large, sustained gains in student achievement and can reduce the achievement gap that persists in many communities (Yeager and Walton 2011). More specifically, this literature has documented a link between early literacy experiences that create a love of reading and literacy proficiency in later life (Bast and Reitsma 1998; Cunningham, Stanovich, and West 1994; Fletcher and Reese 2005; Mol and Bus 2011; Raikes et al. 2006). It also points to the value of parental involvement in this process via its association with higher student achievement and better educational attitudes (Henderson and Berla 1994; Pomerantz, Moorman, and Litwack 2007). In essence, when families value books and view them in a positive light, children are more likely to emerge as strong readers (Bus, van Ijzendoorn, and Pellegrini 1995; Morrow 1983; Teale 1978).

In light of current literature that has identified links between children’s home literacy environments, including print exposure and parental involvement, and later reading and educational achievements (Mol and Bus 2011), some communities seeking to ameliorate disparities in educational outcomes have sought to catalyze early literacy experiences (Allington et al. 2010). The rationale for this takes into account national estimates suggesting that millions of children enter school from home environments not conducive to literacy development (Barnett 2001), and the fact that more than 40 percent of 3- to 5-year-olds are not read to daily by a family member (Forum on Child and Family Statistics 2004). Again, given the link between home literacy environments and subsequent reading and educational success, the above statistics help to explain findings that by the time children reach eighth and 12th grades, approximately two thirds of students read at less than a “proficient” level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Brozo 2010; Rampey, Dion, and Donahue 2009). It also provides support for the attempt to address later educational and literacy deficits by attempting to increase the focus on early child literacy development.

Although communities have sought to implement a variety of early childhood interventions, book distribution initiatives have been quite popular and have taken a variety of forms, such as randomly assigning elementary schoolchildren to receive free books to read over the summer (Allington et al. 2010), flooding preschools with books, training teachers (Elley 2000; Neuman 1999), and combining book distribution with pedagogical or modeling interventions such as Books Aloud (Neuman 1999) and Reach Out and Read (High et al. 2000; Mendelsohn et al. 2001; Needlman, Klass, and Zuckerman 2002; Sanders et al. 2000). Although many of these approaches show promising results, affordability has helped the DPIL to grow in popularity. Due to the subsidies provided by the Dollywood Foundation, communities are able to mail 60 age-appropriate books to each child in their service areas for roughly the cost of postage.

As the DPIL program expands, there has been a growing interest in evaluating whether such a simple and inexpensive intervention is sufficient to produce measurable changes in family behaviors and later school performance. Although several communities are conducting evaluations of DPIL as they implement them, there is a dearth of published research available on the topic. One qualitative study that we conducted of refugee families exposed to DPIL used participant observations and interviews with parents. This research (Singh et al. 2015) found that participation in DPIL and supportive programming led to familiarity with and use of print-based forms of literacy (i.e., parents reported that they were using the books with their children). In a related study, we surveyed families after 10 months of implementation and learned that longer enrollment in DPIL was associated with more child-directed reading and story discussion; this remained the case even when analyses controlled for child age, gender, income, parental education, race, parental nation of birth, and primary language spoken at home (Ridzi et al. 2014).

The research described here picks up where previous studies left off. If home reading behaviors change as a result of participation in the DPIL program, it seems reasonable in light of the literature to expect children to be more ready for kindergarten. Building on this framework, the research questions for this study were as follows:

Research Question 1: When compared with those who have never participated, is there greater kindergarten readiness among children who are consistently enrolled in the DPIL (i.e., those enrolled for 36 months or more, the majority of the 60-month program)?

Research Question 2: Do contextual factors such as socioeconomic status, race, home language, special education status, and gender impact the effects of a book distribution program on kindergarten readiness?

Community Context

The city of Syracuse, New York, has received national attention recently because of the high levels of concentrated poverty in its urban center (Jargowsky 2015; Semuels 2015a, 2015b). Between 2000 and 2013,¹ the number of high-poverty census tracts more than doubled, leaving Syracuse with the highest level of poverty concentration among blacks (65.2 percent) and Hispanics (62.2 percent) and one of the top five cities for whites (21.5 percent) among the 100 largest metropolitan areas (Jargowsky 2015). Syracuse’s schools are approximately 28 percent white, and the majority of students (almost 80 percent) are eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch. The City School district has a graduation rate of approximately 50 percent (Semuels 2015a).

In response to these challenging conditions of poverty and weak educational outcomes, the Syracuse City School District and the Literacy Coalition of Onondaga County (Ridzi, Carmody, and Byrnes 2011) served as partners in the implementation of DPIL, a pilot program they launched in two of the city’s approximately nine zip codes to increase school readiness among incoming kindergartners. Historical data analyzed by the Literacy Coalition revealed that less than one half of all children entering kindergarten were assessed as “ready for kindergarten” upon entry, even though these children were not prevented from entering kindergarten (Syracuse, New York—Community Solutions Action Plan Framework 2012). The Literacy Coalition suspected that this lack of readiness for kindergarten continued to plague children throughout their school careers and contributed to the approximately 50 percent graduation rate for the district. The present research was undertaken specifically to examine whether the DPIL is an intervention that helps to address this challenge of low kindergarten readiness. The two zip codes selected for the program were known for high poverty and are the site of many of the city’s refugee resettlement efforts. Therefore, these zip codes have a history of including some of the children who are least prepared for kindergarten as compared with the rest of the city.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Children living in two zip codes in the city of Syracuse were permitted to enroll in the program and, therefore, receive one book per month from the time of enrollment until their fifth birthday. These books were age-appropriate based on six age groupings ranging from birth to five years of age and were high-quality (typically, hard-cover) books selected by the DPIL Book Committee. This committee consisted of nationally recognized teachers, early educators, and related professionals, and titles selected included a mix of new publications and old favorites such as The Little Engine that Could (Piper 1976) and Good Night, Gorilla (Rathmann 1994).

Enrollment in the Imagination Library (IL) began in May of 2010 with a public announcement in local newspapers and at local events indicating that the only eligibility requirement to enroll in DPIL was to be younger than age five and to live in one of the two zip codes where it was launched. In addition to these public announcements, extensive recruitment was conducted through facilitated enrollment from the Literacy Coalition’s 43 partners. These referral partners predominantly reached out to families in economic need through local charities and government public-assistance programs. The largest number of referrals (245) came from a community health clinic run by a local hospital that served a low-income neighborhood. This clinic invited patients to join during intake processing. To be eligible for kindergarten in the fall of 2013 or the fall of 2014, children needed to be born between December 2007 and December 2009.² A total of 1,004 children out of the 2,731 incoming kindergartners examined as part of this study were enrolled in the DPIL in this age group.

For each incoming kindergartener enrolled in DPIL, we calculated the number of months since they were enrolled in the program. This was done by taking the difference between their date of registration and the end of the program (i.e., the date they moved out of the service area and participation in the program ceased, the date of their fifth birthday, or the date of data matching if they continued to be enrolled in the program). To have three or more years of exposure to the program, a child in the above age cohorts would have had to enroll (and stay enrolled) in the program between the program launch in May 2010 and September 2011. A total of 161 children of the 1,004 children enrolled in the DPIL met this criterion for consistent enrollment. All children enrolled for less than three years were then excluded from the sample. To compare data on consistent DPIL participants and nonparticipants with regard to kindergarten readiness data collected by the school district, children were cross-referenced using last name and date of birth. Overall, approximately 56 percent of children enrolled for three or more years (i.e., 90 children) were able to be cross-referenced, likely due to children moving out of the district. After the DPIL participant list was cross-referenced with school records, both groups (i.e., those not in the program and those in the program for three or more years) were used for statistical comparisons in a de-identified format that did not include date of birth to protect the identities of students.

Outcome Measure

The Syracuse City School District administered the AIMSweb Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) test to all children as they entered kindergarten in the fall of 2013 and 2014. The AIMSweb LNF test consists of asking children to say the names of visually presented letters for one minute; this is then translated to a score comprised of the number of letters named correctly with no upper limit (Shinn and Shinn 2002). As an assessment, it has very little subjectivity, which is important when measuring children at this age and is likely the reason it is a standard subtest that also is used in assessment packages other than AIMSweb, such as the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). We use a score of 13 as the kindergarten readiness cutoff because it has been shown to predict later reading success (Shinn and Shinn 2002). This score is provided in the AIMSweb manual and is roughly set at the 35th percentile based on predictive analysis of later grade-level reading (Pearson Education 2011). Using the score of 13, we created a dichotomous variable for LNF (13 and above vs. under 13). Although simple, LNF has been considered by some to be the best single indicator of risk for reading failure (Elliott, Lee, and Tollefson 2001; Hintze, Ryan, and Stoner 2003; Shinn and Shinn 2002). Furthermore, its predictive validity has been tested in urban school district settings (Rouse and Fantuzzo 2006) such as the Syracuse City School District.

Statistics and Analyses

To examine whether participating in DPIL is associated with higher kindergarten readiness than nonparticipation, we compared consistently enrolled children (i.e., those enrolled for three years or more) with children not enrolled in the program at all. We used chi-square tests (Ugoni and Walker 1995) to ascertain whether there were statistical differences in kindergarten readiness based on enrollment in the program. We also used logistic regression and controlled for race, gender, English as a second language (ESL) status, special education status, and free- and reduced- lunch status. We controlled for age by ensuring that all children were kindergarten age (i.e., within 12 months of age from each other) when tested. We used logistic regression as a strategy for further analysis because it has the ability to control simultaneously for multiple variables, it does not require these variables to be normally distributed, and it can be used with dichotomous dependent variables (Hosmer and Lemeshow 2000).

To ascertain the robustness of the results of the above analysis, we then conducted propensity score matching (PSM) in R (a statistical software) to better control for differences in the sizes of populations we were comparing and to produce balanced DPIL and comparison groups (Randolph et al. 2014). To conduct PSM, we first used a logistic regression to calculate the probability of each child in the school district being in IL consistently (i.e., for three or more years) and then used these propensity scores to match each child in DPIL with another, nonparticipating child who had the same or very similar score (nearest neighbor matching). The goal of our matching was to produce the lowest mean differences between groups (see Tables 1 and 2 for comparison of PSM and non-PSM samples). This analysis allowed us to repeat the above bivariate chi-square tests.

Table 1.

Unmatched Sample Summary Statistics for Consistently Enrolled IL Participants and Not Enrolled.

Variable	Enrolled 3 years or more (n = 90) %	Not enrolled (n = 2,641) %	Overall %	Chi-square statistic	df	p Value
Free or Reduced Lunch	67.8	69.4	69.3	0.10	1	.75
In ESL	31.1	12.9	13.5	24.82	1	<.001
Female	47.8	46.8	46.8	0.04	1	.85
Special Education	15.6	15.1	15.1	0.01	1	.91
African American	21.1	48.3	47.4	25.76	1	<.001
White	32.2	22.8	23.1	4.32	1	.04

Note. IL = Imagination Library; ESL = English as a second language.

Table 2.

Matched Sample Summary Statistics for Consistently Enrolled IL Participants and Not Enrolled.

Variable	Enrolled 3 years or more (n = 90) %	Not enrolled (n = 90) %	Overall %	df	p Value
Free or Reduced Lunch	67.8	67.8	67.8	1	1.00
In ESL	31.1	31.1	31.1	1	1.00
Female	47.8	47.8	47.8	1	1.00
Special Education	15.6	15.6	15.6	1	1.00
African American	21.1	21.1	21.1	1	1.00
White	32.2	32.2	32.2	1	1.00

Note. Jitter plots and histograms to visualize the quality of the matching were very similar, suggesting that the matching was successful. IL = Imagination Library; ESL = English as a second language.

Results

In examining our first research question, that is, whether there would be greater kindergarten readiness among children consistently enrolled in DPIL when compared with those who have never participated, a chi-square analysis on the unmatched sample revealed that a significantly higher percentage of those consistently enrolled in the program (i.e., three or more years) achieved a ready score (i.e., LNF score of 13 or above) when compared with those not enrolled in the DPIL program χ²(1) = 6.57, p =. 01. Specifically, there was a 28.96 percent increase in the number of children ready for kindergarten who consistently participated in the program (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Percent ready for kindergarten (scoring 13 or higher on LNF) using full population.

In examining our second research question (i.e., do contextual factors such as socioeconomic status, race, home language, special education status, and gender impact the effects of a book distribution program on kindergarten readiness?), a logistic regression on the full population was used and indicated that being consistently enrolled in the program (i.e., three years or more) is associated with increased likelihood of being ready for kindergarten (i.e., LNF score of 13 or higher), when controlling for race (i.e., races other than white and African American were the comparison group), gender, ESL status, special education status, and free- and reduced-lunch status, χ²(7) = 97.05, p < .01, −2 log likelihood = 3,678.93. The Wald statistic for consistent enrollment also was significant, χ²(1) = 8.18, p < .01. The odds ratio for consistent enrollment (1.91) indicated that consistent enrollment increased the odds of kindergarten readiness. The inferential goodness of fit test, the Hosmer Lemeshow (HL), was not significant χ²(8) =13.58, p > .05, indicating the model fit the data well; the null hypothesis of a good model fit to data was plausible (see Table 3).

Table 3.

Logistic Regression of Full Population Predicting Kindergarten Readiness LNF Score of 13 or Above.

Full population	B	SE	Wald	df	Exp(B)	Significant
Enrolled three years or more vs. Not Enrolled	0.65	0.23**	8.19	1	1.91	0.00
Free or Reduced Lunch	−0.08	0.09	0.80	1	0.92	0.37
In ESL	−0.35	0.12**	8.47	1	0.70	0.00
Female	0.16	0.08*	4.12	1	1.17	0.04
Special Education	−0.85	0.12**	52.01	1	0.43	0.00
African American	0.10	0.09	1.15	1	1.11	0.28
White	0.35	0.11**	9.65	1	1.42	0.00
Constant	−0.10	0.11	0.81	1	0.91	0.37
N		3,132
−2 Log likelihood		3,678.93
χ²		97.06**
df		7

Note. LNF = Letter Naming Fluency. * p < .05 level, ** p < .01 level

With the full population, we found that being consistently enrolled increases the odds of being ready for school by 90 percent (1.91 − 1.00 = .91), holding all other independent variables constant.

In the above analysis comparing the consistently enrolled group with the not enrolled group, we found the enrolled group had significantly more ESL students, fewer African American students, and more white students (see Table 1). To reduce the chances that these differences were altering the overall analysis, we used propensity score matching. As seen in Table 2, the propensity score matching technique reduced all mean differences between the DPIL treatment group and its matched comparison group to zero. Once propensity score matching was completed, the enrolled and not enrolled groups were not statistically different along any of these characteristics.

When we repeated the chi-square analysis on the data that had been matched through propensity score matching, we found a very similar result: 61.11 percent of those enrolled were assessed as ready compared with 45.56 percent of those not enrolled at all, χ²(1) = 4.36, p < .05. For the matched samples, there was a 34.13 percent increase in the number of children that were ready for kindergarten for those consistently enrolled in the program (i.e., three or more years; see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Percent ready for kindergarten (scoring 13 or higher on LNF) using propensity score matched sample.

Although the above analyses focus on the effects of continuous enrollment in a book distribution program, and as such exclude children who signed up for the program for shorter periods of time, it is worth noting that we did analyze children who were enrolled for brief amounts of time as a follow-up to this study. These analyses suggest that it is not until children reach the three years or more mark that a statistically significant difference emerges between enrollees and nonenrollees with regard to kindergarten readiness. This could mean that meaningful impact requires at least three years of enrollment, but more research would be needed in this area to confirm this possibility. An alternative explanation is that the children who were being recruited were at a greater risk of being not ready for kindergarten and that it took a period of several years (i.e., three or more) before they first reached the level of an average school district student and then surpassed it.

Discussion

In the race to seek low-cost interventions to put children on the track to long-term educational success, the DPIL is a rapidly expanding model of choice for many communities, distributing more than 800,000 books per month internationally (The Dollywood Foundation 2015). While previous research suggests that longer enrollment in the program is associated with enhanced home reading behavior (Ridzi et al. 2014), this study suggests that communities implementing DPIL are justified in expecting a subsequent elevation in kindergarten readiness as defined by LNF. With respect to our initial research questions, we found the following:

When compared with those who have never participated, there is greater kindergarten readiness among children who are consistently enrolled in the DPIL (i.e., those enrolled for 36 months or more, the majority of the 60-month program).

Contextual factors do impact the effects of a book distribution program on kindergarten readiness. Having a home language other than English (as measured by ESL status) and being identified as eligible for special education both reduce likelihood of being kindergarten ready while being white and female increase likelihood of being ready. However, even after taking all of these factors into account, there is greater kindergarten readiness among children who are consistently enrolled in the DPIL.

The authors caution, however, that LNF is only one measure of literacy-based kindergarten readiness and that further research should be conducted to determine whether similar gains are found using other types of diagnostic assessments and in other types of communities (i.e., suburban and rural). Moreover, although previous research has found LNF “to be the most significant predictor of first-grade reading, vocabulary and language” (Rouse and Fantuzzo 2006:352), LNF is at its heart a simple test of letter naming and, as such, is limited. Finally, although not permitted by the DPIL program, random assignment would be an excellent addition to the growing research surrounding book distribution programming.

Further research could also probe whether variations in age among entering kindergartners could be a lurking variable. We could not explore this because the exact ages of the children were removed during the data matching process to protect student confidentiality. With that said, we have no reason to believe that the average age (i.e., birth date) is different between the two groups examined in this study. Although this may be a moot point from a policy standpoint as such variations will always exist in entering kindergarten cohorts, it is nevertheless empirically interesting.

Another potential lurking variable could be a selection bias such that those parents most interested/involved in their child’s academic lives would be the very parents who would sign their kids up for a program such as the DPIL. To the extent that this occurs, it may not be the book but the proactive parent (compared with the assumingly nonproactive parent who would neither sign the child up for a program nor read to them) that leads to increases in readiness. This is worth exploring more in future studies, although in the present study, this is likely counteracted by the facilitated enrollment of at risk families by community partners. An analysis of children signed up for less than one year of programming as compared with children in neighborhoods where the program was not available suggests that those who were enrolled through the outreach methods used were actually weaker and less prepared students than the school district as a whole. For this reason, the program effects observed here may actually underestimate the value added of consistent DPIL enrollment.

Previous research has provided evidence that involvement in book distribution programs is associated with an increase in the frequency of child-directed reading and story discussion (Ridzi et al. 2014), although it remains somewhat unclear how this translates to school readiness. Nevertheless, we do have some clues. A growing body of research literature suggests that children who are motivated to read actually spend more time reading, which, in turn, is associated with being a better reader (Edmunds and Bauserman 2006; Guthrie et al. 1999; Wang and Guthrie 2004). Furthermore, a qualitative study of 91 fourth-grade students that investigated reading motivation found that key sources of motivation included actions of family members, teachers, and peers, most notably buying or giving children books and reading to children (Edmunds and Bauserman 2006). To the extent parental involvement is associated with higher student achievement and better educational attitudes (Henderson and Berla 1994; Pomerantz et al. 2007), it seems clear that, to the extent that book distribution programs such as the DPIL catalyze family reading, these programs play an important role in helping young children achieve educational success.

Although an elevation in LNF scores is perhaps not surprising given mounting anecdotal and evaluation reports from communities across the United States that have seen school assessments improve after participating in DPIL, these findings may hold relevance for the growing literature on “wise” psychological interventions (Walton 2014). Such interventions are not based on intensive training and investment of resources that might seek to even the odds with more advantaged peers; rather, they seek to use precisely targeted activities to change perspective. As sociologist W. I. Thomas famously hypothesized, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Merton 1995:409; Thomas and Thomas 1929:572). Similarly, cognitive behavioral approaches to human services, as well as humanist and existentialist approaches, have argued for the importance of perspective and mind-set in life outcomes (Frankl 2006). In this case, it appears that a targeted and repeated, yet low-cost intervention such as the DPIL may indeed produce an affinity for reading that contributes to motivation and results in enhanced development of preliteracy skills. We do not wish to suggest that simply distributing books is sufficient in and of itself to ameliorate our nation’s intractable achievement gaps, but do think that it is a practical starting point for communities seeking to improve their educational outcomes.

Future research should consider the addition of a qualitative component to explore the benefits to the entire family, not just the child receiving the books. It is feasible, for instance, that slightly older siblings (i.e., those older than five years of age) experience similar literacy gains sparked by the increased frequency with which parents read to their children as the result of receiving books in the mail. Similarly, parents who are learning English as a new language and/or parents seeking to increase their own literacy skills may also benefit from the materials provided through book distribution programs such as DPIL. Finally, it would be informative to conduct a within-families analysis of book reading and kindergarten readiness to see if participation in DPIL has significant effects on family reading behaviors and kindergarten readiness.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Virginia Carmody, the MAT of the Literacy Coalition of Onondaga County, and to the students who assisted with the research design and data collection.

Authors’ Note

This research was conducted in conjunction with the Center for Urban and Regional Applied Research at Le Moyne College and as a project of the Measurement Action Team (MAT) of the Literacy Coalition of Onondaga County, of which all authors are members. Portions of these findings have been presented at the Homecoming 2015 Conference of Imagination Library Implementers June 24–26, 2015, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Those interested in researching Imagination Library may wish to visit the following website: .

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The pilot program being evaluated here was funded and managed by the Literacy Coalition of Onondaga County to ascertain whether this was an effective program for our community. In addition, funding for the pilot project being evaluated here was provided in part by the Central New York Community Foundation, which is an employer of one of the authors.

Notes

Author Biographies

Frank Ridzi, PhD, MPA, is vice president of Community Investment at the Central New York Community Foundation, associate professor of Sociology at Le Moyne College and president of the Literacy Funders Network, an affinity group of the Council on Foundations. This article is part of a broader research agenda focusing on determining what programs and interventions are most effective in bringing about community improvement.

Monica Sylvia, PhD, is a developmental psychologist whose areas of expertise include children’s cognitive and problem solving processes. The recipient of the 2014 Rev. Msgr. Robert A. Casey Teacher of the Year Award, Dr Sylvia teaches courses in Child & Adolescent Development, Growing Through Play, and Infancy, along with Introductory Psychology and Introduction to Research Methods. You can find her most recent publications on the impact of shared book reading on the development of childhood literacy skills in journals such as Reading Psychology and Early Childhood Education.

Xiaofen Qiao, PhD, has worked as a data analyst in Syracuse City School District. She received her PhD in Curriculum Inquiry from University of Delaware, focusing on second / foreign language acquisition curriculum reflection and exploration. Currently she works as a faculty at Cushing Academy in Boston, MA.

Jeff Craig, EdD, has been an educator and leader for more than twenty years serving as a teacher, assistant principal, and principal at two different middle schools. Named the 2008 New York State Middle School Principal of the Year and recognized as a National Distinguished Principal by the U.S. Secretary of Education, Jeff is the director of Research and Technology for the New York State Middle School Association. In 2016, Jeff joined the Cortland Enlarged City School District as their assistant superintendent for Curriculum Instruction after serving Onondaga-Cortland- Madison BOCES as the assistant superintendent for Instructional Support Services.

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