Supporting parents to support children. A UK Randomised Controlled Trial testing a text-message intervention to cultivate the home learning environment [Pre-registered report].

Supporting parents to support children. A UK Randomised Controlled Trial testing a text-message intervention to cultivate the home learning environment [Pre-registered report]. | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Supporting parents to support children. A UK Randomised Controlled Trial testing a text-message intervention to cultivate the home learning environment [Pre-registered report]. Fionnuala O'Reilly, Susanna Loeb, Alice Farrell, Gaia Scerif This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4980225/v2 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Abstract A stimulating and supportive home learning environment helps children to be cognitively and emotionally ready to learn by age 5. Despite the growing availability of parenting resources, the attainment gap between affluent and disadvantaged families continues to widen across many developed nations. Tips by Text is a 12-month text-message program originally developed in the US to support parents in embedding developmental activities into daily routines with their children. Targeting 4-5-year-olds, the messages aim to enhance language, literacy, numeracy, and socioemotional skills. We adapted and tested Tips by Text in a large-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 109 schools in England from 2019 to 2021 (n=3,600). Due to Covid-19, post-intervention data collection faced approximately 70% attrition on the primary outcome measure, resulting in a final analytical sample of n=753. This sample, however, is comparable to the US-based sample initially used to evaluate the program’s efficacy, allowing us to proceed with analysis. In this study, we replicate the primary impact analysis conducted by the original RCT evaluators and extend it to explore whether children facing diverse challenges including various forms of socioeconomic disadvantage, language barriers, special educational needs, or multiple simultaneous challenges - show differential responses to the program. Educational Psychology language literacy socioemotional skills text-message parents home learning environment preschool Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4980225","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":349748604,"identity":"ad7a570e-3090-4421-b80d-c71aa3c87d1d","order_by":0,"name":"Fionnuala O'Reilly","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4355-9088","institution":"University of Oxford","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Fionnuala","middleName":"","lastName":"O'Reilly","suffix":""},{"id":349748605,"identity":"cb12246e-cfd9-4f9d-9ccd-891161af5418","order_by":1,"name":"Susanna Loeb","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Stanford Graduate School of Education","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Susanna","middleName":"","lastName":"Loeb","suffix":""},{"id":349748606,"identity":"cbf8db6d-ee50-44d9-9fca-59bf6c69cc4b","order_by":2,"name":"Alice Farrell","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, HM Government, UK","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Alice","middleName":"","lastName":"Farrell","suffix":""},{"id":349748607,"identity":"59d6278d-1ee8-4911-a214-048cc982e75a","order_by":3,"name":"Gaia Scerif","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABDElEQVRIie2RsWrDMBCGTxxocvEqkxK9go0haUnJ2tew8OA10KVQaFUMymLImryNykG79AECWWr6AoYuhnqo25SSDjIZC9U3SEjcp//EAXg8fxKm9zuy+uXwPj5CwfRX1YDyA07EUYq8pPsGuvl4ukR+s+gIQpGxpgVKXUryrErBTJ6eEvLdxhBElcWoApo4Fa20YNqqNYaPuxNNED9pGAHQhVNZ1WULnb1bI/KroG8sJsD3IUUKZQRwm4lewYB/pfDPFGdjsajNmTJ50qfgaGOKIKoezHkVF87vy1Xxum26uRQhsbdFNxuHIqdtez1LtCvF9kv2fUCAMtgPd2CQ8vCtXrl1l3o8Hs+/5QOWpk1BxIQY/QAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"University of Oxford","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Gaia","middleName":"","lastName":"Scerif","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-08-26 21:18:16","currentVersionCode":2,"declarations":{"humanSubjects":true,"vertebrateSubjects":false,"conflictsOfInterestStatement":false,"humanSubjectEthicalGuidelines":true,"humanSubjectConsent":true,"humanSubjectClinicalTrial":false,"humanSubjectCaseReport":false,"vertebrateSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false},"doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4980225/v2","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4980225/v2","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":75629198,"identity":"478c5094-1694-4adc-9130-c0a365dafb5f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-02-06 13:36:15","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":495821,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Supportingparentstosupportchildren.V2Final31.01.2025.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4980225/v2_covered_860cb8eb-31cd-4978-9b6d-407e5ea21aa1.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"The authors declare no competing interests.","formattedTitle":"Supporting parents to support children. 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