This meta-analysis, published in Educational Research Review, explores whether shared reading interventions are equally effective across a range of study designs, across a range of different outcome variables, and for children from different socioeconomic status (SES) groups.
Studies were included in the meta-analysis if they met the following criteria:
- Must contain a universal and/or targeted shared book reading intervention
- Must include at least one control group
- Participants must be typically developing children aged seven years old or younger
- Must not target multilingual populations and/or the acquisition of an additional language
- Must isolate the variable of interest (shared book reading)
- Must report on objective quantitative measure of language ability
- Must provide sufficient data to calculate the effect size
The results suggest :
- There was an overall effect size (+0.19) of shared reading on children’s language development.
- This effect was moderated by the type of control group used and was near zero in studies with active control groups (ES = +0.03).
- There were also no differences across outcome variables or for SES.