‘Books Together’, a Dialogic Book Sharing Programme: Adaptation and Feasibility Testing of Online Delivery

Abstract Even before the COVID-19 pandemic the numbers of children entering mainstream education with speech and language learning needs, was significant. Without additional support, these children are at risk of poor academic attainment, mental health difficulties and social problems. This study investigated the feasibility of online delivery of the ‘Books Together’ dialogic book sharing programme. School closures due to COVID-19 meant that parents, initially recruited for a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of the “Books Together” programme, were offered an online version. Participants were 44 parents of 3–5-year-old children. An online weekly survey and end of programme questionnaire explored parental responses to the programme. Measures of child language, child behaviour, social-emotional ability, and parenting competence were collected at baseline. The same measures were collected at follow-up, except the child language measure which could not be collected due to COVID-19 restrictions. Online deivery was feasible with 79% of parents completing the programme (mean 6.06 of 7 sessions attended). Parents reported high satisfaction (80 – 97%) with various components of the programme and all reported continuing to book share with their children. The programme achieved significant post-intervention increases in parenting competence and well-being and child prosocial behaviour and social/emotional ability. The programme is low-cost and can increase the parenting strategies that build children’s linguistic abilities. Results suggest that the online programme is as effective as the group based version. The results of this and the previous group based version of the programme justify a larger trial comparing the two delivery modes.