Hello! My name is Lucy Rowland and I am a picture book author and also a children’s speech and language therapist. And I’m thrilled to be taking up the position of BookTrust Writer in Residence for the next six months.
Lucy Rowland is BookTrust's new Writer in Residence
1 September 2026
Over the next six months, Lucy will be exploring the link between shared reading and speech, language, and communication skills.
Find out more about the Writer in Residence
Lucy Rowland is a picture book author and children’s speech and language therapist
Over this time, I hope to delve deeper into the relationship between reading a story with a child and supporting their speech, language, and communication development.
Sharing a story with a child gives them a wonderful opportunity to practise their attention and listening skills, to hear new words in meaningful contexts, and to support their phonological awareness skills, particularly books with rhyme and rhythm and repetition, which can help children to tune in to the sounds of language.
It can help them to develop prediction and sequencing and inference skills, and also just encourage them to feel more confident to ask and answer questions and share their views about a story.
Because the magic isn’t just in the book, it’s in the conversation around the book.
Lucy Rowland, BookTrust Writer in Residence
And children learn best when adults pause, wonder out loud, ask open questions, and follow the child’s lead and help them to talk about the story.
And that’s why reading together and talking together really do go hand in hand.
I can’t wait to explore this more, and thank you for following along.
Writer in Residence
Find out more about our Writer in Residence Lucy Rowland and stay up to date with everything she’s getting up to during her time in the role.
Take a look