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Abstract A stimulating and supportive home learning environment helps children to be cognitively and emotionally ready to learn by age 5. Despite the growing availability of parenting resources, the attainment gap between affluent and disadvantaged families continues to widen across many developed nations. Tips by Text is a 12-month text message program originally developed in the United States to help parents integrate developmental activities into daily routines with their children. Designed for 4- to 5-year-olds, the messages aim to support language, literacy, numeracy, and socioemotional skills. We adapted and tested the Tips by Text program in a large-scale randomized controlled trial involving 109 schools in England from 2019 to 2021 (n = 3,649). Due to COVID-19, postintervention data collection faced approximately 70% attrition on the primary outcome measure, resulting in a final analytical sample of n = 753. Despite this, the retained sample was comparable to the original U.S. study, allowing us to proceed with analysis. In this study, we replicate the primary impact analysis conducted by the original randomized controlled trial evaluators and extend it to examine whether the intervention had differential effects on children facing various challenges, including socioeconomic disadvantage, language barriers, special educational needs, or multiple overlapping risk factors. Our analysis found no significant improvements in reading-related skills or socioemotional outcomes nor any meaningful differences in response to the program based on these subgroups. The high level of attrition limited the study’s power to detect effects, underscoring the need for further evaluation, which is currently underway. Keywords: parents, text message, home learning environment, language, socioemotional skills
Educational Impact and Implications Statement The home learning environment plays a crucial role in shaping early development and may help mitigate disparities between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more advantaged peers. Through a large-scale randomized controlled trial, we examined whether sending parents of 4- to 5-year-olds short, actionable tips via short message service could enhance their children’s reading-related skills and socioemotional well-being. This article presents secondary data analyses exploring the program’s impact on students facing additional challenges, including socioeconomic disadvantage, English as an additional language, and special educational needs. The intervention did not lead to significant improvements in reading-related skills or socioemotional outcomes, including for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, English as an additional language learners, or those with special educational needs. However, high attrition because of the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the study’s power to detect effects. Further evaluation is needed and is already underway. This research contributes to our understanding of whether and how simple, regular prompts can effectively support parental engagement in early learning.
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Original journal Journal of Educational Psychology
Published 2025-08-28
DOI 10.1037/edu0000973
Open record PMC12680085 The original authors and American Psychological Association do not endorse this journal or its agent. Verify findings in the canonical article before making consequential decisions.