Home Visitors Literacy Program, an overview
Kris R. Noam, Phd
To reach Waterbury’s youngest constituents and encourage early literacy, BTS partners with United Way of
Greater Waterbury and local organizations (Wellmore, Staywell and the WPS -Wilson School Family Resource
Center) to implement the Early Literacy Home Visitation Program (ELHV). ELHV supports families with children
aged 0 to 5 to promote early literacy by giving families books and educating them about the importance of early
exposure to spoken and written words. BTS’ role is to support home visitors through professional development,
connect them to BTS’ Early Care and Education Collaborative Action Network, and support them in their data
collection. Home visitors collect the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) and the Literacy Survey. Home visitors
encourage families to read to their children, talk about the stories they read, and have quality interactions with
their children to lay a literacy foundation. Most families remain in the program at least 18 months and data is
collected when the child is 6, 12, 18, and 24 months
years old. Figure 1 Time when parents started reading to
child
When parents complete the first survey, they are asked 41%
when they started reading to their children. Some 31%
parents (9%) started reading to their children before
they were born; 41% started reading as soon their 16%
baby was born; 31% introduced reading when the baby 9% 3%
was about a month old; 16% started to read when their
baby was 2 to 3 months old; the remaining 3% parents Prenatal At birth 1 month 2-3 Older
started reading to their children later.
months than 3m
Figure 2 Select Reading activities
7 6m (n=72) 12m (n=34) 18m (n=23) The literacy data that was collected focuses on © BTS, July, 2018
6 3.8 4.8 4.3 activities that parents could engage their
5 3.9 4.9 4.1 children in to promote early literacy
4 development. The figure on the left shows a
3 1.8 3.3 4.3 sample of these activities. Overall, we find that
2 parents engage in more literacy activities as the
1 2.9 3.8 4.1 child gets older. There is a slight dip between 12
0 5.6 6.1 6.4 and 18 months but that could be attributed to
parents spending less time with their children as
Talk about book most 18 month old children are in childcare
settings rather than home with parents.
Read a book
aloud
Let child turn
pages
Ask questions
when reading
Sing songs
Early literacy home visitors not only promote literacy, they also monitor the child’s overall development. To do so,
they collect the Ages and Stages Questionnaire. The ASQ has five domains of development for which children are
tested:
• Gross motor skills focus is on big movement and coordination of arms and legs. Milestones are sitting up,
crawling and walking;
• Fine motor skills develop to strengthen control of smaller body parts, such as hands, fingers, and wrists. Fine
motor skills are needed to draw, write, and eat with a spoon;
• Communication skills can be both verbal and non-verbal. Babies’ first form of communication is crying, later
comes blabbering, and then making words and sentences;
• Personal and Social skills are important for babies and the baby will soon learn that parents like it when she
smiles to them. Social skills are also needed for a baby to indicate what they need;
• Problem Solving skills become important when babies get older. Babies begin to realize that they can influence
the world around them. For example: “if I want that toy, I could crawl to get it”. This problem-solving behavior
usually starts around nine months old.
The ASQ adapts to the stage the child is in and standardizes the scores across different ages. For example, the 2
month survey could ask if a baby cries when it is hungry while the 12 month survey may ask if a child says
“mommy” or “daddy”. In a similar vein, the 6-month survey might ask if a child started rolling over, while a 12-
month survey asks if child can stand by itself. The ranges of all five domains are between zero and 60 with a higher
score indicating more advanced development.
Figure 3 ASQ domains, over time As is shown in the figure on the left,
the scores on the five domains were
57 57 58 57 54 54 54 55 56 pretty stable over time and across the
54 55 54 53 different domains. There are some
55
53
domains where the scores increase
while for some the scores reduces.
This is in part because of a so-called
selection effect; children who have
higher needs are more likely to stay
(be self “selected”) into a program that
Gross motor Fine motor Communication Personal & Problem solving provides resources while children who
social develop well are more likely to drop
6m 12m 18m out. Indeed, the data showed that
among the 2-month survey, only five
percent of babies appeared to be delayed and among the 6-month this nearly doubled to 9%.
The fact that the percentage of babies with a significant delay increases over time confirms that children in higher
need homes are more likely to stay in the program. Since the program is designed to serve babies and toddlers in
need and provide support for their caregivers, it appears that the program is doing what it was designed to do. The
future will have to tell if Waterbury’s babies and toddlers who were exposed to early literacy development support
will indeed do better academically.