A Story Grows in Rural Uganda: Studying the Effectiveness of the Storytelling/Story-Acting (STSA) Play Intervention on Ugandan Preschoolers’ School Readiness Skills

ABSTRACT

Children in the developing world are at far greater risk for emotional, psychological, and health challenges; at the same time, they have little access to clinical interventions or other support services. The intervention presented in this study is a low-cost, play-based intervention that we believed could help to address early learning and developmental challenges in preschool children in under-resourced areas, in this case, rural Uganda. This study explores the connection among storytelling, story-acting, and school readiness skills, which include emergent literacy, receptive vocabulary, and theory of mind. Ugandan children ages 3 to 5 were randomly assigned to participate in either the Storytelling/Story-Acting (STSA) play intervention (n = 63) or a story-reading activity (n = 60) for one hour twice per week for six months. With the aid of translators, all children were assessed for school readiness skills (emergent literacy, receptive vocabulary, and theory of mind) before and after the six-month intervention. Caregivers were also administered an interview that assessed their educational level, quality of life, reading aloud to target child, social support, and total possessions. Overall, participants benefited significantly from a story-reading activity with or without STSA. When examining both groups together (N = 121 post-intervention), school readiness skills significantly improved. Caregiver variables also predicted these three child outcome variables at baseline, suggesting that caregivers play a significant role in the development of their children’s school readiness skills. Implications for these findings are discussed.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the following persons for their assistance with this study: the caregiver interviewers (Karen Gubert, Daniel Gubert, Jamie Lynn Forzato, Harriet Namigadde, Patrick Okapero Kokas), caregiver translators (Harriet Namigadde, Patrick Okapero Kokas), child interviewers (Michelle Fanciullo, Julius Ssentume), child translators (Habib Gayonga, Julius Ssentume), Ugandan Project Coordinator (Julius Ssentume), American Project Coordinators (Michelle Fanciullo, Tina Lo), participant recruiter (Julius Ssentume), materials design (Tina Lo, Dustin Kahoud), data entry (Dori Brender), STSA and control group facilitators (Julius Ssentume—project coordinator, Habib Gayonga—associate coordinator), caregiver and child video transcribers (Faye Bourie, Fran Dalis, Abigail Frawley, Erin Fults, Christina Garcia, Yonina Goldberg, Kaylene Irizarry, Seerat Kapani, Jessica Kozakowski, Jenae Richardson, Anna Rivera, Adama Toure, Angel Vidal, Cassandra Walker), drivers (Andrew Ssekyewa, Peter Kabiito), babysitters (Margaret “Maggie” Namugenyi, Grace Nabbanja), Mpigi Community Library (Joeria Namuddu, Librarian), and Kabubbu Community Library (Augustine Timothy Napagi, Librarian). The authors also gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the children and caregivers who participated in this study. For more information about this research, please visit http://www.rurallibrariesresearchnetwork.net.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by two grants awarded to the authors by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State.

Notes on contributors

Geoff Goodman

Geoff Goodman, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology in the Long Island University Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program, New York.  He is also a licensed clinical and school psychologist with 27 years of experience in private practice in New York, treating children and adolescents as well as adults.  He is certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) and is certified as both an adult and a child and adolescent psychoanalyst and Fellow of the International Psychoanalytical Association (FIPA).  In 2013, Dr. Goodman was awarded the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship by the US Department of State and spent eight months in 2014 establishing and evaluating a play-based intervention program to facilitate the development of school readiness skills in preschool children in two rural village libraries in Uganda.  Dr. Goodman is Coordinator of the Long Island University Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program Applied Child Research Team; Chair of the Child, Adolescent, and Family Therapy Research (CAFTR) Special Interest Group of the international Society for Psychotherapy Research; and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Rural Village Libraries Research Network.  He is former Director of the Long Island University Children’s Institute for Play Therapy and Research (CIPTAR) and former Director of the Norbert Freedman Center for Psychoanalytic Research at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) in New York, serving on its Board of Directors.  Dr. Goodman lives in Lynbrook, New York, with his wife Valeda and daughter Carlyn.

Valeda F. Dent

Valeda F. Dent, Ph.D. is Dean and Professor, University Libraries at St. John’s University in New York. She holds an M.S.W. and M.I.L.S. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the Palmer School at Long Island University. Her primary research interests include the impact of chronic poverty on rural development; rural libraries in Africa and related literacy and reading habits; ethnographic approaches to understanding the user experience; and emerging technologies. Dr. Dent has published a number of books, including Qualitative Research and the Modern Library (2011) and Rural Community Libraries in Africa: Challenges and Impacts (2014) with co-authors Dr. Geoff Goodman and Dr. Michael Kevane. Dr. Dent is the Co-Founder of the Rural Village Libraries Research Network, and her work in Africa has been published in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals and presented internationally at conferences in South Africa, China, South Korea, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Greece, Ireland, Uganda, Netherlands, Argentina, and Swaziland, to name just a few. Her work has also been cited extensively in the literature on libraries in the developing world. Dr. Dent’s collaboration with Dr. Geoff Goodman, which began in 2009, explores the overlooked impact of rural village libraries on preschoolers’ learning and school readiness skills, and in 2014 Dr. Dent and Dr. Goodman were both awarded Fulbright Scholarships which allowed them to spend eight months working in two rural village libraries in Uganda establishing an intervention program to facilitate the development of school readiness skills in preschool children. This intervention continues to run in the village of Kabubbu, with positive outcomes for the participants. In her spare time, Dr. Dent practices and teaches yoga. Dr. Dent and her husband live in New York with their 6 year old daughter Carlyn.