Norfolk's libraries launch new scheme to get young children reading
Story Explorers, tracks and rewards young children for picking up books and is designed help their development
Norfolk's Libraries have launched a new scheme to get young children reading.
Story Explorers, is a reading club for 0 to 5 year olds that tracks their progress and rewards them for reaching milestones.
Jill Terrell is the head of the County's library service.
She told us that regularly reading from an early age can have a range of benefits:
"The closeness with parents when you start shared reading from birth builds their ability to listen and understand different tones of voice. That helps them to develop their own speech and language, as they start to grow older. It also helps them to understand what images on a page mean along with cause and effect. It's such an important skill to build up before school".
She went on to say it's vital they give young children and their families support after a disruptive eighteen months:
"We are really concerned that we give families and children all the support we can. This initiative was born out of that imperative but that desire to support has always been there".
Elizabeth Southard, is the early years community librarian for Norfolk
She says they've got a book for everyone:
"We've got black and white books that you can use straight from birth. We've got lovely board books with tac tile bits along with sounds and pop-ups. We also have so many picture books, but we also have lots of specialist stuff like non-fiction books like 100 first words or animals for babies. These are great things to introduce children to".
She says there's plenty of reason to give it a go:
"It's free, so there's nothing lost if you don't give it a go. Plus you get stickers for coming along to borrow books, so that's a huge benefit in of itself. We have no late fees for children under five, so you can bring back damaged books as we don't charge for them. That's just children exploring the books and so we see a damaged book as one that's been well loved".