Discovering reading together
Lindsey Fraser and Kathryn Ross

The Scottish Executive's Read Together campaign encourages parents and carers to share books with their children. Here, the national coordinators of Read Together, Lindsey Fraser and Kathryn Ross, of Fraser Ross Associates, explain why the small grants scheme has helped to make the initiative a success.

The Scottish Executive's home reading initiative - Read Together - was launched in August 2002 with the publication of a booklet for parents of young children. The aim of the three-year initiative is to encourage parents and carers throughout Scotland to share books with their child from an early age and to help them to discover the pleasures of reading together.

Apart from the benefits in terms of literacy skills, the shared experience of storytelling is one that reinforces the relationship between adult and child and Read Together offers confidence to parents through positive, practical support. The Read Together! booklet, given to every child in their final year of pre-school, was developed in consultation with parents, teachers and librarians.

The booklet offers answers to a number of frequently asked questions about children's reading and recognises that most parents instil early literacy skills without even realising it. Pointing out street names, traffic signs and familiar letters of the alphabet are all day-to-day opportunities for children to become engaged with the printed word.

At the heart of the Read Together campaign is the website; an evolving resource, which provides a variety of routes to support the continuing work of parents, teachers and librarians. This includes personal examples from a range of Reading Champions, bright ideas submitted by parents and carers, and recommended reading under a range of age categories. The enjoyment of stories is paramount, because that's the greatest incentive of them all. We are always keen to widen Read Together's audience and, following on from discussions with adult literacy organisations, video and audio elements have been added recently to enhance the site's accessibility.

In January 2003 the Scottish Executive's Education Department announced £300,000 of small grant funding to help local community groups, schools, playgroups and others to establish their own home reading initiatives. Four hundred and fifty organisations throughout Scotland made successful bids and the final total of grants paid was in excess of £330,000.

The projects are remarkably varied and include reading groups and clubs for all ages, book-share schemes, book corners, initiatives targeting traveller families, toddler nursery rhyme groups and more. Storysacks were popular with many organisations, as were 'curiosity kits' and 'book detective kits' for older children, right up to 'topic packs' that teenagers were happy to take home. In almost every case, parents and carers were involved in selecting materials and making up the packs.

One childcare project took the idea a step further by adding a teddy bear, a disposable camera and diary. Charlie Bear goes home with a different child each day and joins in with the family routine - including reading together, of course - and he even has his own pyjamas! Parents are invited to photograph Charlie and record his visit in the diary provided and they find that this simple prop helps them to make the most of the time they spend reading with their child.

Reading groups of all kinds have sprung up, from the evocatively named Bounce and Tickle parent and toddler group, which used its funding to publish a playdough-resistant song and rhyme booklet, to a primary school Torch Light Reading Club that aims to capture the thrill of reading a favourite book under the bedclothes. 'Blokes into Books', is an on-site group for gas terminal workers which aims to encourage over 500 men - fathers, grandfathers, uncles and carers - to read with their children. The project is sustained by fortnightly mobile library visits, which also provide access to an online book ordering service.

Such has been the success of the small grant scheme, with many parents and carers saying that their child's excitement about reading has both delighted and surprised them and others commenting that their own interest in reading has been rekindled or sometimes lit for the first time, that the Scottish Executive announced a further £300,000 of funding at the start of this year. Submissions once again poured in from organisations all over Scotland and applicants were informed of their success in June 2004.

Information about last year's initiatives can be found in the News Around Scotland section of the Read Together website and we are looking forward to spreading the news about this year's projects; in all, hundreds of home reading intiatives are building reading confidence, strengthening family and community bonds, generating excitement about all kinds of print and encouraging everyone to read together.
 

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