Center for Families

Jennifer Dobbs received a 2007 Kontos Faculty Fellowship to evaluate Ready to Read, a randomized controlled trial of a volunteer shared-reading program in preschools. Dobbs is an assistant professor of developmental studies in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies. In 2006, she earned her doctorate in clinical psychology, with a child, adolescent, and family concentration, from the University of Massachusetts.

The Ready to Read project was designed to provide dialogic reading training to community volunteers who read with young children in preschool and child care centers. Dialogic reading makes the reading experience a conversation, or dialogue, between the adult and child.

The project began with Dobbs in September 2006 as part of the vision of Purdue’s former first lady, Patty Jischke, and other members of the Purdue Women’s Club, who were committed to providing volunteer work in the community in support of school readiness and literacy. They were interested in using a research-based approach and focusing their efforts on making a difference for young children in Tippecanoe County, Indiana.

The project was a natural fit for the volunteers, and for Dobbs, whose major research interests focus on emergent literacy and preschool learning and behavior. One of the research program’s objectives is to develop interventions that promote academic success and social-emotional well-being for young children. Dobbs trained the volunteers in the dialogic reading approach and created a research project to document the outcomes of their program.

Almost 175 volunteers have been trained, and Ready to Read is being implemented in five child care settings in Tippecanoe County. Individual volunteer commitments to read with preschool children vary — some read twice a week; some once a month; some in summers only; and others year-round. The flexibility of the program is a good fit for volunteers.

The initial phase of research connected with the project has been completed, and data is being analyzed in order to craft a grant proposal for a larger and more rigorous implementation of the project. The long-term goal is for the project to expand locally and become a model for volunteer groups to use in their communities. With additional funding (to continue the research and provide free books to the children involved), the hope is that the Ready to Read model will expand to all of Tippecanoe County and eventually be offered statewide.

Partially adapted from the Human Development Extension Life Lessons newsletter.