Case study: Supporting family reading with Chatter Packs

The Dry Arch Sure Start Centre at Dungiven and Limavady, Northern Ireland, works in partnership with libraries and parents to promote early reading and writing skills. Caroline O’Kane, Sure Start centre administrator, describes how the project works.

Chatter Packs aim to use fun to help preschool children aged between three and four years to love books, learn new vocabulary, improve speech and language and prepare for school. The service is particularly useful for children who have been referred for speech and language therapy and for children with learning difficulties.

The local speech and language therapy services and Sure Start worked together to develop Chatter Packs, a toy and book-lending service for children aged three and four. The packs offer the chance to borrow a colourful child’s backpack, which includes two books, a rhyme, a toy or game, and ideas for parents and
caregivers on how to use the packs with their child. First launched in October 2005, the service allows families to have fun learning together.

A partnership between Dry Arch Sure Start and Limavady Early Years Forum (under the auspices of the Western Health and Social Services Board, Western Area Childcare Partnership) is now distributing the Chatter Packs via the Western Education and Library Board, the Dry Arch pre-school and Sure
Start settings.

Libraries are key partners alongside the Dry Arch Centre in encouraging family reading, with Sure Start centres increasingly basing services at libraries, such as toy libraries, reading sessions and messy play mornings. There are 40 Chatter Packs in each library and in the Dry Arch Centre. Each pack has a different theme of interest to pre-school children. Families can borrow the packs on a fortnightly basis from the Dungiven and Limavady Library, while the Dry Arch Centre lends only to pre-school children and Sure Start families.

The scheme has been successful in increasing library membership and has encouraged parents and carers to read and bond with their children. It has been well received by parents, libraries and all childcare settings within the Limavady
Council Area. Quarterly monitoring of the Chatter Packs is being carried out and recorded for evaluation and improvement purposes. We want to highlight the importance of reading as a family and encourage partnership working to ensure that best practice is provided.

This case study originally appeared in Read On summer 2007.