I must confess that I was a Whitney fan before I was a Dolly fan. Indeed, Whitney brought me to Dolly.
But I am now a big Dolly fan - for her music, for her wit, but mostly for the books that she has given so many children.
In 1995, Dolly set up the , an initiative that gifts books to children aged 0-5 years in five countries. Starting in the US, its remit now also includes Canada, Australia, the Republic of Ireland and the UK.
Why books? Dolly talked publicly about the impact that illiteracy had on her father. She understood that, for some, literacy is a huge challenge and that this can be due to nature, nurture, or both.
She understood that literacy brings opportunities for learning, for imagination and for accessing worlds outside of your lived experience.
Reading needs: a ‘prevalent’ problem
In the UK, a substantial minority of children have reading needs, with 20-25 per cent failing to meet government standards at ages 6 and 11.
demonstrates that reading needs are also prevalent in the teenage years, especially for children from more disadvantaged backgrounds.
We have translated our work into two programmes to enable secondary school leaders and teachers to support reading among their pupils.
Reading proficiency is linked to our genes and our environments. Importantly, as researchers Sara Hart, Elsje van Bergen and others , genes can masquerade as the environment because parents (and their genes) create the reading environments of their children.
So, what makes a successful reader is complicated.
The importance of reading at home
However, while we cannot change people’s genes, we can do something about environments and opportunities - and this is exactly what Dolly Parton set out to do with her Imagination Library.
Millions of books have been sent to preschool children globally and have found their way into the homes of many UK families, including those that I know.
Doctoral research from Dr Caroline Zwierzchowska-Dod at Swansea University shows the impact of the programme, including increased shared reading.
What a difference one person can make, providing much-needed access to books during times when we have seen mass closure of community libraries.
Dolly’s impact on children’s literacy
Early reading experiences set the scene for school, where children are taught the skills needed to read independently. Successful independent reading requires both skill and will, but skill must come first.
The National Year of Reading brings renewed emphasis on reading in the UK, though a sad loss in Dolly Parton.
A lesson to all of us: never to judge a book by its cover. The more that you know about Dolly Parton, the more that you understand that behind that presence and that voice is a fantastically smart woman who is determined to share her wealth in a way that would put many rich men to shame.
Thank you, Dolly.
Jessie Ricketts is a professor in the department of psychology at Royal Holloway University and leads the
