We believe you know your children and families best. The booklist is just a starting point to encourage your partnership with families in their children’s learning journey. Parent and Educator partnerships are proven to optimise and strengthen children’s learning.

We encourage you to share our “Fast Facts “ with your families .

Check out this research:

“The opportunities for helping children develop their language skills with books are greatest when adults help children to become engaged by:

1) Encouraging children’s participation in the story,

2) Expanding on children’s responses, and

3) giving feedback.

By interacting with children in these ways, adults give children a chance to practice listening and speaking skills that foster language development.”1

Children that start school with stronger language and early literacy skills have better life long chances at employment, home ownership, further education and health outcomes.

We also know:

“ When adults read to children by asking complex questions, expanding on children’s responses and providing encouragement, children’s expressive language develops faster than when adults read in less interactive ways.

• Children learn more vocabulary when teachers involve them in discussions about books.
• The more discussions children and teachers have about the reasons for actions or events in a story, the higher children’s vocabulary scores.
• The more often adults read to children, the better children’s language skills.
• One encounter with a new word is not enough to support word learning. Children often need to hear words many times before learning them.
• Children learn more new words if a story is read to them multiple times than if several stories are read to them only once”2.

We hope this website will support your own early literacy journey and welcome any feedback, suggestions or comments.

Finally a word from Jackie French, our Children’s Laureate

” Stories tell us who we are. They teach us empathy so we understand who others are. They give us the power to imagine and create the future….”I believe that if you give a child 1,000 books, you are giving them 1,000 different world views. Expose a child to enough good books, and they’ll learn to think.”

Let’s start with 100!

1 ,2, Gardner-Neblett, N., & Gallagher, K. C. (2013). More than baby talk: 10 ways to promote the language and communication skills of infants and toddlers. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, FPG Child Development Institute.

Available at: http://mtbt.fpg.unc.edu