In Jordan, most children under 6 are cared for at home, but most parents do not engage in literacy-building activities. To change this cultural behaviour, the Queen Rania Foundation designed and implemented the Iqrali Programme (Arabic for ‘Read to Me’), which applies a behavioural science approach to encourage parents to read with their children from birth, with the long-term goal of improving school readiness in early literacy skills.
The programme uses behavioural science approaches to affect parental behaviour by gaining deeper insights into the target population, designing targeted solutions that solve real challenges parents face and developing effective interventions, content development and messaging to increase parental reading with children.
The programme has three components:
Social Behaviour Change Communications (SBCC) aim to highlight for parents the benefits of reading with their children. Parents are shown that the moments of joy and bonding they can experience while reading with their children outweigh the associated cost of taking away from other parental responsibilities.
An intervention component provides parents with know-how and access to children’s books, as well as nudge messaging and information and activities they need to start applying the behaviour.
A parenting platform supplies parents with resources and support on where to find age-appropriate books, how to read with children, common challenges and how to overcome them, and more.
Behavioural science approaches were used throughout all stages of the programme design.
Exploratory research:
To gain a deep understanding of the target audience, a barriers analysis methodology was applied in a nationally representative survey to understand parent practices with children under 6 as well as the barriers and motivators to reading with children. A second phase tested social behaviour change messaging to understand what resonates with parents in Jordan using existing material and videos. This second phase helped to inform messaging for the SBCC component and across the programme.
Influencers of parenting behaviours were studied, including grandparents, and research was conducted to better understand these influencers’ role in parents’ reading to children.
Likely early adopters of reading with children from birth were identified using existing data, to help pinpoint those to target first, since once early adopters pick up the behaviour, others are likely to follow suit.
Behaviour targeting:
A literature review was conducted to identify specific behaviours that have the most impact on early literacy skills (e.g. talking, reading, singing).
One critical aspect of behavioural science is to focus on a single behaviour to affect. A decision was made to target reading with children from birth, since this behaviour allows for exposure to complex sentence structures, to which children would otherwise not be exposed. Moreover, reading from birth enables exposure to Modern Standard Arabic, the language of instruction at school, but often not the language spoken at home.
Solution design:
In an exploration phase, programme designers examined the components of successful behavioural programming in other contexts and applied that evidence to their knowledge of the local context. For example, they noted that successful behavioural change takes years of consistent messaging, support to parents and resources that facilitate the uptake of desired behaviour.
Designing for the context necessitated a deep understanding of the context, as well as working with key stakeholders to co-design strategy and specific interventions.
Solution testing:
In 2024, efforts are focused on feasibility and impact testing, refining interventions to maximize impact and optimizing for larger scale implementation. Behavioural science approaches are being applied in the use and choice of data collection tools.
Through the Iqrali programme, the Queen Rania Foundation aims to reach 500,000 parents and children in Jordan and increase the percentage of parents who read with their children at home. Creating long-lasting behavioural change takes five to eight years (depending on context) and the Foundation’s plan to reach scale includes three phases: 1) testing and piloting (2024–2025); 2) scaling (2026–2027); and 3) running at scale (2028–2030).
For more details, please refer to UNESCO's Global Report on Early Childhood Care and Education.