Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Reader Organisation's Get Into Reading Intervention

The investigators will evaluate the effectiveness of a parent-child shared reading intervention run by The Reader Organisation. The investigators will be asking parents and children across Liverpool to either (i) attend a weekly shared reading programme or (b) to attend a weekly children's reading group at a library. The investigators will look at how the reading groups affect children's language development, by comparing children's language development before having gone to these groups and after they have attended these groups.

This is a Randomised Control Trial to test whether The Reader Organisation's Shared Reading Programme is more effective at improving the language development of children than a free library reading group. Intervention group: Fifty parents of children (3 to 4-years of age) will be recruited to take part in a 8 weeks long shared reading programme. The shared reading programme is comprised of two different modules: a) 'Magical Storytimes', in which a collection of shared book reading sessions are led by a project worker and b) 'Stories for You and Yours', in which parents will be taught how to choose books and read interactively with their child. Control group: Fifty further families, matched for age and background will be recruited to a reading control group and asked to attend a weekly shared reading group at a library where parents/children will read in a shared pre-school library reading group, coordinated by a group facilitator. Location: The Shared Reading Programme will take place in the child's nursery (in nurseries across Liverpool). Control group parents and children will attend a weekly reading group at a library. All standardised tests, for all children, will take place in the child's nursery. Language gains from pre- to post- intervention will be measured.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

All families will be included unless they fit the exclusion criteria below.

Exclusion Criteria:

This is a study of typically developing English-learning children. The following exclusion criteria are designed to exclude families in which the target child is at risk of atypical or delayed language acquisition:

* Children born before 37 weeks gestation (premature)
* Children who weighed less than 5lb 9oz at birth (low birth weight)
* Children who have had an ear infection/glue ear for longer than 3 months, 4-6 ear infections within a 6 month period or another identified hearing problem (e.g. at newborn hearing screening)
* Children with an identified developmental disability (e.g. Cerebral Palsy, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Fragile X syndrome, Muscular dystrophy, Di George syndrome, Down's syndrome, Williams syndrome)
* Children with a hearing or visual impairment
* Children who hear another language (not English) for 1 day or more in a typical week (please note that this also excludes children of parents who do not speak English)
* Children whose parents have a learning disability which puts their children at risk of language delay and excludes the parents from giving informed consent on their own and on their children's behalf.