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Completed Projects

Final Report

Family Reading Project

The Barking & Dagenham Family Reading Project is one of thirty-three projects funded by DCMS/Wolfson Challenge Fund in 2000-01. In this socially deprived borough, the gap between adults' and children's literacy is widening. Although almost 80 % of eleven year olds have library membership, by the age of twenty-five, this figure has fallen to under 25%. The project will target adults between the ages of 20 and 40, encouraging parents to read and use libraries for their own benefit as well as to support their children. At the centre of the project is the Family Reading Librarian, who leads one session in the Partnership with Parents course and then hosts further sessions for parents in the local library. In addition, a "taster collection" will be left in the school for the parents to use throughout the course. As the project develops, reading groups will be set up and all library staff in the borough will receive training.

As the external evaluator, CIRT will evaluate the Partnership courses, taster collections, library sessions and reading groups in terms of their impact on and value to parents. This will be achieved primarily through the observation of sessions and the use of simple, user-friendly questionnaires. The value to staff of the training they receive will be evaluated by observation and questionnaire. CIRT will also conduct a series of interviews with a sample of project partners at the beginning of the project and again towards the end of the project.

CIRT will regularly analyse the data collected and report to steering group meetings throughout the project to inform future decision-making. A summative report will be produced to report on the overall impact of the project over its lifespan. This will incorporate information collected and analysed by the Barking & Dagenham staff involved in the project.

Publications

McNicol, Sarah, and Dalton, Pete, "The Best Way is Always Through the Children: The Impact of Family Reading", Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, pp. 246-253. Nov 2002, Vol 46(3)

Dalton, P. and McNicol, S (2002) Project Brought Families to Book!, Adults Learning 13(7), pp. 7-8.

McNicol, S., Dalton, P. (2001) Barking & Dagenham Family Reading: Evaluation Report