Western Australia
Listing of Programs:
- Better Beginnings has been developed by the State Library of WA as a family literacy program that aims to support parents as their children’s first teacher. It works through strong partnerships with health professionals, local governments and public libraries. The State-wide development of Better Beginnings has been made possible through funding from the State Government of Western Australia, the Rio Tinto WA Future Fund and supporting Western Australian Local Governments.
The program has been independently evaluated by Edith Cowan University since the 2004/05 pilot. Making A Difference, the 2009 evaluation report, highlighted a number of key findings demonstrating the program's positive impact on parental early literacy attitudes and practices including that:-
• before involvement in the Program over half the mothers (56%) commented that their child was not at all interested, or not very interested in books. After involvement, 94% of mothers indicated that their child was very interested, or quite interested, in sharing books.
• eighty five per cent (85%) of mothers surveyed, reported that since receiving the Better Beginnings toolkit, they read to their child and this compares with only 14% having reported reading to their child beforehand.
• sixty two per cent (62%) of mothers said that their confidence in sharing books with their child had increased as a result of their involvement with the program. Over half of the mothers with older children reported that they read more frequently to their older children.
• Seventy per cent (70%) of mothers reported that the Program had changed how often they read to, and communicated with, their child.
Key findings from a recent interim report (January 2010), conducted in four diverse communities, comprehensively demonstrate that the program continues to have a positive impact on parental early literacy attitudes and practices.
Specific findings show that since the last survey in 2008: • 84% of parents surveyed indicated that they now read to their toddler more often • 92% of parents indicated that their toddler now asks for a book to be read • 88% of parents indicated that they now communicated more with their toddler • 80% of parents indicated that other people read with their toddler more often
The evaluation demonstrates that the program is improving literacy practices by actively encouraging parents and other family members to make the time to read to their children and they are reading more often.
The report indicates that parents found the Better Beginnings resources useful. As one parent suggests [the toolkit] “opened my eyes up that they do enjoy books…[I] used the pamphlets to go find some of the books”.
Involvement in Better Beginnings encouraged parents and their children to join the local library and participate in related activities such as rhymetime and storytime.
The report suggests that the program is helping increase the confidence of parents in sharing books with their toddler and in some instances reading with their child is increasing their own level of literacy. Low literacy levels were found not to deter the parent from involvement in the program.
This finding had particular significance for Indigenous mothers and mothers from different ethnic backgrounds where, according to visiting Child Health Nurses, the Better Beginnings gift book; “appeared to be the only book they have”.
The program is encouraging parents to start reading to their baby at a much younger age than they otherwise would have. As one parent points out [the program] “made me think about ways of sharing books with my toddler that I would only have done with older children”.
Parents surveyed identified ways in which reading to their children had assisted with their development, particularly in relation to vocabulary and making connections with the wider world. One parent commented that “… he starts pointing and naming things in the shed that he has read about in a book ”.
Child Health Nurses involved in the study commented that the distribution of Better Beginnings materials encouraged parents to visit them and reinforced the importance of reading to their children. This finding has particular relevance in Indigenous communities, where, as one nurse commented; “giving them something at each visit makes them more willing to come back”.
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