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Chester-le-Street Bookstart encourages parents and carers to enjoy books with their children from as early an age as possible. They specifically work with families in disadvantaged areas where educational achievement is perceived as low.
Bookstart has helped countless families in Chester-le-Street to lay down the foundations of literacy and numeracy by providing fun and educational activities for children and parents to participate in. Each child receives a free pack of books to inspire, stimulate and create a love of reading which will give them a flying start in life.
The Bookstart project involves working with health visitors to distribute starter packs; giving talks to parents about the scheme and how they can encourage their children to read; providing a loan scheme of baby/toddler books and packs and initiating clubs and story times in community settings which encourage the sharing of books.
We gave this group a grant of £7,000, which enabled them to set up two new Story and Rhymetimes sessions and helped to sustain the other existing sessions on offer.
Around
eighty children have benefited from these sessions so far and this number
is expected to increase as the project goes from strength to strength.
Julie Foreman, a Project Worker from Bookstart commented:
"We have expanded our activities thanks to the grant. This
project is a valuable resource in the areas where we work. The feedback we
have received from our beneficiaries has been really positive."
One of the parents also got in touch to say:
"Thank you very much for the money, my children really enjoy
story time and have become more talkative at home since going to story time.
They also enjoy their fruit and drink - a brilliant idea."
