According to BookStart it’s important to:
“…encourage a love of books, stories and rhymes in children from as young an age as possible because reading for pleasure has a dramatic impact on educational outcomes, wellbeing and social mobility and is also a huge pleasure in itself”.
Earlier this year, we started a small library for the children within the setting, as one way in which to help develop a love of books with the children and the joy reading can bring. This is because we as a setting believe that reading makes up a fundamental part of language development in early childhood. Not only does it help with a child's ability to understand words, but it also ignites the spark for imagination. Reading also plays a crucial role for speech development and introduces children to the world around them as well as new concepts.
It is so important to start reading with your child from an early age and to incorporate this into a child’s daily routine. It’s never too early to start looking at books with your child and there is no right or wrong way to read to a child. Reading should be fun and not too structured as we want children to enjoy books and listen to stories, or even to look at books independently. This builds the foundations for a continued love for reading as they start school and progress into adulthood. If we can get the reading journey right from a young age, we are setting children up for life.
After the summer holidays The Goslings' library will be re-opening and every child who is new to the preschool since September 2023 will be given their own library card, and their own bookmark that they have helped to make. Then every week all the children within the setting can take a new book home if they wish.
Last term we provided parents with feedback forms to fill in so that we could monitor how successful the library was and to check that the selection of books within the library was suitable. Almost 100% of the responses received were very positive towards the library. Below are some quotes of parental feedback:
“Fantastic scheme. … can’t wait to get another book out. Thank you”
“This is a brilliant idea. Thank you.”
“...thought it was funny that the animals changed the noises they make to trick the robbers”
“… had this read every night before bed and looked forward to it”.
“She enjoyed joining in with the expressions”.
“…loves the Maisy stories because they relate to things she does every day too and she remembers the characters,”
“She absolutely loved this book – wanted to read it every night”
“…loves this idea – talks about it all the time”.
“Excellent idea”
“...enjoys stories and likes the library. She said she would like more,”
We have loved setting up the library and seeing the children within the setting enjoy taking a book home with them. All the children are very keen to come and pick a new book; they never have to be coaxed, some even get upset that they can’t pick a new book that week until they’ve brought the old one back because they’re so keen to take another book home. It has also been observed that more children are going to our reading corner to get a book and sit on the mat to look through them or come and ask one of the adults to read with them, which is lovely and just what we wanted to happen.
Hopefully, this year the library will be just as successful as last year, and we can keep developing this love of books with the children. I would also like to thank all the parents for their support with the library and we are always very grateful if anyone has any books they can donate to help expand our library.
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