Raising Readers with Ready To Learn: A six-year follow-up to an early educational computer game intervention

摘要

Millions of young American children have consumed media created with funding from the Department of Education's Ready To Learn (RTL) initiative, which aims to promote school readiness. The Early Learning Hypothesis predicts such educational media catalyzes long-term academic success. To test RTL's effectiveness and the Early Learning Hypothesis, the authors re-contacted and re-assessed 101 youth in middle childhood who had participated in an evaluation of an RTL-funded, literacy-themed computer game in early childhood. A curvilinear relation was found between children's early childhood pretest scores and middle childhood outcomes. The positive RTL effects were still measurable in middle childhood, but only for children with below and above average literacy prior to the original intervention. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.