SBIR Phase II: Testing and Optimizing Digital Tools Aimed at Promoting Parent/Caregiver-Mediated Dialogic Reading from Infancy to Kindergarten Entry and through First Grade

This SBIR Phase II project will expand on Phase I R&D work to build, test, and optimize a web-based software system for the classroom setting to complement the digital library app for home use developed in Phase I. This cost-effective system will further promote adult-mediated dialogic reading routines with children 0-7 years in age. Early exposure to dialogic reading has been shown to foster virtually all school and reading-readiness indicators - from cognitive and social-emotional development to vocabulary attainment and concepts about print. The new system also introduces foundational science knowledge and habits, such as the capacity to observe, experiment, and problem solve. The ever-widening education attainment and opportunity gaps between rich and poor result in diminished human potential and citizens unequipped for the demands of an information-based labor market. Investments in early childhood can prevent educational deficits, so a cost-effective system that coaches adults to engage children in a dialogic reading process can make a substantial contribution to ending school-readiness gaps - the precursor to persistent achievement gaps - and the cycle of economic and societal disadvantages they perpetuate. This project also addresses the urgent need to bolster the teaching of higher-order thinking skills by early education teachers. The market for early-education digital products is sizable and growing. Purchasers in this market are K-3 schools, preschools, Head Start, social- service agencies, and libraries, as well as individual families. This project will build the technical capacity to augment and measure the growth of adult-led dialogic reading with children 0-7 years in age. The systems architecture and proprietary algorithms will produce a system that increases adult capacity for dialogic questioning and exploration by using the copyrighted, text-specific guidance embedded in the library. Metrics, children's work product, and online adult-learning modules aim to incentivize and build teacher/caregiver confidence, inform school leaders, and focus them on continued application of the dialogic process to other books and subjects. Augmentations to the content management system developed in Phase I will enable the sales, distribution, management, and evaluation of all product form factors. The secure data-sharing portal and dashboard built through this project will allow institutional clients to monitor and evaluate their programs. R&D will include collection of engagement metrics, including usage data (access to which is built into the digital library) and online surveys. The core innovation to be studied is whether this product enables adults of varying educational backgrounds to practice an intellectually ambitious reading and thinking method with their children. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.