Navigating the Texting for Parents Landscape

Navigating the Texting for Parents Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities

Consultative Conversation, May 25, 2016

Navigating the Texting for Parents Landscape:

Challenges & Opportunities

Research Summary

Text messaging interventions have been well received by diverse populations

Text messaging removes some barriers to program success, such as unpredictable schedules and high mobility (Meuwissen, Giovanelli, Labella, Susman-Stillman)
Parents believe that text messages serve as good reminders to engage in literacy activities with their children (Meuwissen, Giovanelli, Labella, Susman-Stillman)
Parents believe text messages are more effective than phone or mail messages and is a good way to receive parenting information (Kharbanda et al, 2009)
Fathers have been particularly responsive to text messages and were more likely to engage in activites than fathers who do not receive text messages (Hurwitz, Lauricella, Hanson, Raden, & Wartella, 2015)
Texting may have a greater influence on parents of boys (Hurwitz, Lauricella, Hanson, Raden, & Wartella, 2015)

Timely text messages to parents improves overall student performance, attendance

Texting interventions to parents have been shown to have significant results on student GPA (S3 Lab; Bergman, 2012)
Texting parents improved parent accuracy in estimating the number of days their child had missed (S3 Lab)
Texting parents reduced chronic absenteeism by 11% (S3 Lab)

Increased parental engagement in early literacy activities at home

Parents who receive text messages are more likely to engage in literacy-promoting activities: tell stories, recite nursery rhymes (York & Loeb, 2014; Meuwissen, Giovanelli, Labella, Susman-Stillman)
Text messages that remind parents to work towards their daily reading goal with their children and congratulatory texts for meeting their goal led to increased number of minutes that parents read to their children using an electronic tablet with ebooks (Mayer, Kalil, Oreopoulos, Gallegos, 2015)

Children whose parents received text messages score higher on early literacy tests

Children of parents receiving text messages gained two to three additional months of learning in important areas of early literacy (York & Loeb, 2014)
Test score increases were stronger for Black and Hispanic students (York & Loeb, 2014)

Text messaging parents is cost effective

Text messages to parents can cost less than $1 per family (York & Loeb, 2014)

Other technology-related research that can inform our work

Digital Equity

From Digital Equity for Learning:

Almost all lower-income families with school age children are connected to the Internet.
Family members help each other learn about, and through, technology.
Mobile-only Internet access has more limited utility for families.
One-quarter (23%) of surveyed families are mobile-only.
Internet connectivity is crucial for children’s learning.
Among children ages 6 to 13, 81% play educational games and look up information they’re interested in
Subsidized broadband programs are not reaching their target audiences.

References

Bergman, P. (2012). Parent-child information frictions and human capital investment: Evidence from a field experiment. Available at

Digital Equity for Learning.

Hurwitz, L.B., Lauricella, A. R., Hanson, A., Raden, A., & Wartella, E. (2015). Supporting Head Start parents: Impact of a text message intervention on parent–child activity engagement. Early Child Development and Care, 185(9), 1373-1389.

Kharbanda, E.O., Stockwell, M.S., Fox, H.W., & Rickert, V.I. (2009). Text4Health: A qualitative evaluation of parental readiness for text message immunization reminders. American Journal of Public Health, 99(12), 2176-2178.

Mayer SE, Kalil A, Oreopoulos P, Gallegos S. Using behavioral insights to increase parental engagement: The Parents and Children Together (PACT) intervention. 205. Available at .

Meuwissen A, Giovanelli A, Labella M, & Susman-Stillman A. Text2Learn: An early literacy texting intervention by community organizations. Available at .

Student Social Support R&D Lab One Pagers. Available at .

York, BN & Loeb S. (2014). One step at a time: The effects of an early literacy text messaging program for parents of preschoolers. Available at .