ACQ Vol 11 no 2 2009

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ACQ Volume 11, Number 2 2009 107
to model a number of age-appropriate reading aloud
strategies for parents so as to provide parents with some
practical ideas of how to read with their child and to use the
materials as a prompt for discussion.
There are currently two phases of Let’s Read underway:
1) the community implementation of the initiative across
Australia, and 2) a cluster randomised controlled trial to
assess the effectiveness of the initiative.
Community implementation
The implementation of Let’s Read into communities
commenced in August 2005. The first community to launch
Let’s Read was Corio in Geelong, Victoria. To date there are
approximately 98 communities delivering Let’s Read across
Australia. A community development approach is taken to
promote the importance of literacy through existing services
and systems to reach as many families as possible and to
sustain the program in the long term.
Community-based professionals are
trained and resourced to work on a
one-to-one basis with families to promote
the importance of reading with young
children. Current work in Let’s Read has
focused on developing a program that is
also adaptable to indigenous and
multicultural communities.
Cluster randomised
controlled trial
The Let’s Read trial (funded by the
Australian Research Council) was initiated
to determine whether a population-level literacy promotion
program aimed at very young children can improve their
emergent literacy outcomes. The cluster randomised
controlled trial, which started in 2006, is being delivered
through maternal and child health nurses in five local
government areas in Victoria (Darebin, Frankston, Hobson’s
Bay, Dandenong and Moreland) and will follow a cohort of
600 children from birth to school commencement. Final
results are anticipated in 2011.
This will be the first population-based randomised trial
to demonstrate how the key messages and corresponding
activities of an early literacy promotion program can
influence the acquisition and development of emergent
literacy. The Let’s Read trial will also provide new information
about children’s literacy and language acquisition and their
relationship to the home and family literacy environments,
contributing to the further advancement of future literacy
promotion programs.
Conclusion
It is anticipated that the results from the Let’s Read research
projects will add to the growing knowledge base concerning
the effectiveness of early literacy promotion programs as a
means to address illiteracy. These results should help guide
future policy and investment.
Acknowledgement
The trial researchers are from the Royal Children’s Hospital,
the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Centre for
Community Child Health, Clinical Epidemiology &
Biostatistics Unit and from the Speech Pathology
Department of the Royal Children’s Hospital and the
Department of Paediatrics at the University of Melbourne.
This trial has been funded by the Australian Research
Council.
Fischel, 2008). Similarly, the quality of a child’s surrounding
environment, in particular the home environment, is
also found to be an important determinant of literacy
development (Hood, Conlon, & Andrews, 2008; Melhuish
et al., 2008; Weigel, Martin, & Bennett, 2006). Home
environmental factors such as access to literacy-related
materials (e.g., books, alphabet materials, crayons and
paper), use of the local library, parental modelling of reading
behaviours and language rich environments (DEST, 2005)
are all important influences on children’s literacy success. In
addition, parental activities such as regular shared reading
with developmentally appropriate books, use of specific
reading styles such as dialogic reading, singing nursery
rhymes and other songs, and playing interactive games like
Eyespy have all been shown to be important (Butzlaff, 2000;
Fielding-Barnsley & Purdie, 2002; Huebner, 2000).
The results from this research has lead to an increasing
number of literacy promotion programs across the world,
such as Reach out and Read and BookStart, aimed at
enhancing children’s emergent literacy skills and improved
literacy outcomes for children (Baker et al., 1999; High,
LaGasse, Becker, Ahlgren, & Gardner, 2000; Wade & Moore,
1998). Although there have been limited rigorous trials of
such literacy promotion programs, reported results have
demonstrated some expressive language benefits through
clinic-based literacy promotion programs (High et al., 2000;
Mendelsohn et al., 2001) or an increase in home-based
literacy activities (National Centre for Research in Children’s
Literature, 2001; Weitzman, Roy, Walls, & Tomlin, 2004).
The Let’s Read initiative
Let’s Read is an initiative that promotes shared reading with
young children 0–5 years of age and has been developed by
the Centre for Community Child Health (a key research
centre of Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) in
partnership with The Smith Family. Let’s Read was designed
after an extensive literature review, in consultation with
Reach out and Read in the USA and after pilot testing. It
specifically takes into account the importance of linking
community interest and enthusiasm around reading to
children with a well-structured intervention built around
factors within the family home that have been found to
influence children’s literacy development.
The Let’s Read initiative includes the following core
components:
• written and audio-visual materials which promote
language and literacy practices/activities between young
children and their parents or caregivers;
• provision of, or access to age-appropriate (free) books;
• training of professionals to convey guidance messages
and to model shared reading practices to parents.
Content and design of the initiative were overseen
by a steering committee, comprising paediatricians,
psychologists, parenting experts, and maternal and child
health nurses. In recognition of the differing stimulation
required at various developmental stages, a multi-point
model was adopted with guidance materials targeting four
specific ages and planned around common visits (4-months,
12-months, 18-months and 3½ years of age) to maternal or
child and family nurses available in most states and territories
in Australia.
At each of the four specified Let’s Read visits, parents
receive age-appropriate guidance messages, an age-
appropriate booklist, a DVD reiterating the guidance
messages and a free age-appropriate book from a
community professional. Professionals are also encouraged