Introducing Early Reading Connects

“With strong communication skills children can engage with the world and thrive. Our review has found that these essential life skills are too low a priority in education.” “Communication and language are essential life skills and a human right.” - John Bercow Report

Imagine what a difference it would make if every child loved to read?

Why reading is so important “Research has shown that children who hear stories before going to school are the most likely to succeed. Storytelling helps children internalise language patterns, as well as providing them with a rucksack of imaginative possibilities to draw upon when creating. It is worth noting that the most proficient writers in any class are readers.” - Pie Corbett

Why family involvement is key “Parental involvement in their child’s reading has been found to be the most important determinant of language and emergent literacy.” - Bus, van Jzendoorn and Pellegrini, 1995

What is Early Reading Connects? Early Reading Connects brings together easy-to- access resources and great ideas from a wide range of early years organisations, settings and practitioners to help you: encourage a love of language, stories and reading among the babies, toddlers or young children in your care engage and involve the children’s families in this process share good practice and resources and build your confidence in supporting the children and their families

Our partners – who helped to develop and continue to support us Booktrust ContinYou

Why you should join ERC National Recognition – a certificate Toolkit and evaluation grid to help get you started Website full of resources, practical tried-and-tested ideas and inspiring case studies Networking opportunities

Online News, case studies, blog entries from around the UK A bank of resources and practical ideas Your own blog to use

How you can get started 1. Reflect on how you approach stories and reading in your work at present and what you could do to make improvements. 2. Read the evaluation grid which helps you to see where you are now and how to more forward.

3. Set yourself one or two action points of things that you can do to help encourage a love of reading in the children that you work with. 4. Join Early Reading Connects by filling in the online form at

On the next four slides you will see just a few practical ideas you might want to put into practice. The Early Reading Connects toolkit and evaluation grid are organised using the four themes of the Early Years Foundation Stage. And so are the following ideas…

Unique Child Use a game to help children explore stories Use the editable story game to make a game based on a child’s favourite book Use books for interaction with autistic spectrum children outside of the world of eye contact

Positive Family Relationships Start loan schemes for books, story sacks and more Get in touch with dads using texts and s. Create events for family to attend, like a ‘Bedtime stories’ party

Enabling environment Put books in unusual places, not just the book corner Take children out into the local area to inspire new stories Create new resources using our online materials

Learning and development Make family storybooks Use Pie Corbett’s storytelling technique Use the evaluation grid to plan your whole- setting strategy

Networking opportunities Being an Early Reading Connects member allows you to learn from other early years settings as well as share the ideas and resources that have worked in your setting. Your work could be showcased on the Early Reading Connects website or featured in a newsletter

Let’s help every parent help their child to love reading.