Our very first initiative was funded by the Reading Community Fund in partnership with the John Sykes Foundation in 2021. We were hugely helped by relationships that had already developed between the university and people in Whitley through the Marvellous Mums and Whitley Researchers projects. After meeting and talking to local parents and community members, we set up our very first sessions.
From January to July 2022, we ran weekly storybook sharing sessions with parents and pre-schoolers at Whitley Library, with help from the branch manager there as well as from Reading Libraries. We designed sessions based on what we know works from research and also what people told us they wanted. Children listened to a story reader (one of whom was also a local mum) read a book and took part in fun activities related to the book such as singing and craft. Parents were able to read the story to their child as well to become familiar with it. At the end of the session parents enjoyed a hot drink and cake or biscuits and took the book home with them to keep. This meant that children could enjoy reading the book with their parent or carer time after time. At the end of each block of sessions, families had a total of eight books: a mini library! Some of these books were supplied by Bookstart, some were generously donated by publishers and most we bought with the funding we had.
(Note the photographs are from later sessions at Hexham Road community centre)
Research team: Prof Holly Joseph and Dr Daisy Powell
Research assistants (storybook readers): Charlotte Moss and Sonal Zahid
