Findings from the formative research phase of mobile reading to children.

1. Reading to Children in Delhi,
India
Findings from the formative research phase of
Mobile Reading to Children
Molly Jamieson Eberhardt
Results for Development Institute

2. Reading with
children from a
very young age,
even before they
are literate or
verbal themselves,
increases learning
outcomes later in
life.
But many disadvantaged children do not have access
to such early reading experiences.

3. At the same
time, mobile
phones are
becoming more
and more
ubiquitous, even
for
disadvantaged
families.
What is the potential for mobile phones to play a role
in increasing access to quality reading experiences
for young children?

4. Can we foster…
habit of reading
culture of reading
love of reading
motivation to read
access to text
future educational benefits
using…

5. Mobile Reading to Children (mR2C)
1. Access
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2-year pilot in Delhi, India
2. Awareness 3. Knowledge and
practice

6. Mobile Reading to Children (mR2C)
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2-year pilot in Delhi, India
3. Knowledge and
practice
▪ What should this look like?
▪ How do we best encourage and
empower caregivers to read
with their young children?

7. R4D’s Adaptive Learning approach
Stage 1: Design
1. Define and understand the problem
2. Develop the theory of change
3. Sketch out a program design
Stage 2: Experiment
3. Test small first, learn quickly
4. Define alternatives, test simultaneously and assess
5. Adapt, rinse, and repeat
Scale and evaluate
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8. Formative Research: Methodology
Phase 1: 25 key informant interviews with
caregivers
Phase 2: 108 key informant interviews with
caregivers
▪ Topics
▪ Time use
▪ Beliefs/attitudes about reading to
children
▪ Mobile use
▪ Current reading behaviors
▪ Content preferences
▪ Inc. 25 follow-up interviews
▪ 5 focus group discussions with teachers
Phase 3: Usability testing with 25 users
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4 month pre-pilot effort

9. Target audience

10. What we learned
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Attitudes Knowledge
Behaviors Content

11. ▪ Storytelling and reading have different purposes
▪ Reading: not a joint activity; academic (form of study),
studying → higher SES
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Attitudes

12. ▪ Caregivers are not aware of educational and developmental
benefits of reading to very young children, especially when
they are pre-literate and pre-verbal
▪ Caregivers are not aware of good (interactive) practices for
reading with young children (though strong storytelling culture
has similar features)
▪ Sources of knowledge: Caregivers trust and learn about child
development and good practices from
1. Healthcare workers (government or private clinics)
2. Family and neighbors
3. Teachers/schools
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Knowledge

13. ▪ Lack of time is the biggest barrier to reading with children
▪ Gender and age: highly correlated to time spent with children and
access to technology
▪ Men, regardless of age, spend less time with children but have
more access to technology.
▪ Women are responsible for childcare, and therefore have more
time with children. But they have less access to technology.
▪ Youth and young adults (brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles)
are the most strategic access points given their more active
reading behaviors and openness to technology.
▪ The least strategic is grandparents who have the lowest
literacy levels and least access to phones.
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Behaviors

14. ▪ Bilingual books were strongly
preferred: way for both
caregivers and children to learn
English
▪ Books with moral lessons
preferred
▪ Visually rich
▪ Indian context
▪ Poems and songs as a
teaching and joyful storytelling
tool for children 0-3.
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Content

15. What we learned
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Attitudes Knowledge
Behaviors Content

16. How findings inform program design
1. Reaching caregivers through
key influencers
▪ Healthcare workers,
teachers, mothers’ group
leaders
2. Using active community youth
as network nodes
▪ Youth community leaders
3. Improving the user interface and
adding preferred content
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17. Considerations for scale
▪ How will attitudes, knowledge, behaviors, and content
preferences vary across contexts?
▪ Cultural
▪ Rural/urban
▪ Different SES groups
▪ Time horizon for changing attitudes and behaviors?
▪ Should we even try to build a culture and habit of reading at
scale when contextual barriers may vary significantly? Small
is beautiful?
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18. Questions?
Molly Jamieson Eberhardt
Results for Development Institute
meberhardt@r4d.org