Share books and talk together
was launched in February 2006 as a joint resource from Talk
To Your Baby and Bookstart. It is a seven-page toolkit for
early years professionals that promotes book sharing as
a means of creating a language-rich home. It includes information
on why reading is good for talking, a handout for parents
on sharing books with children, a sheet of reading and talking
activity ideas and sources of information and resources.
It is co-branded and it is distributed by both Talk To Your
Baby and Bookstart through their websites.
Promoting reading in the home ties in to the objectives
of both Talk To Your Baby and Bookstart. As members of the
Family Reading Campaign, the two organisations decided to
collaborate on a single resource that would complement their
individual activities, and which they could promote through
their separate communications media.
Talk To Your Baby is the early language campaign of the
National Literacy Trust. Its aim is to encourage parents
and carers to talk more to children from birth to three.
Talking and listening to babies helps them develop good
language and communication skills, and storytelling and
book-reading are an easy way to have regular, additional
talking time.
Bookstart is the national book gifting programme that encourages
all parents and carers to enjoy books with children at as
early an age as possible. It aims to help every child in
the UK to develop a lifelong love of books. Talking about
books offers a natural point of synergy for the two organisations.
The collaborative approach has been rewarding. It has given
each organisation a means of promoting its message to a
potentially new audience and it has resulted in a resource
that practitioners can use to re-enforce practically the
benefits of both talking and book sharing with babies and
young children. Figures show that Share books and talk together
has been downloaded 6,773 times in its first six months
from the Talk To Your Baby website.
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