Our strategy
In 2021, we published Our Strategy – The Next Chapter, which set out our five-year vision of how we would get every child reading, regularly and by choice, so they could reap the life-changing benefits it brings.
The strategy focuses on bringing the benefits of reading to children in the greatest need and to achieve long-lasting impact by establishing reading habits and behaviours.
Since then, we have commissioned surveys of thousands of families and MRS award-winning in-depth qualitative studies to understand family dynamics and values. Based on this research, we developed our Bookstart Toddler and Bookstart Pre-schooler programmes which are delivered through our network of 6,000 local partners who can reach our target groups.
Established in 2022, the programmes reached over 340,000 children from low-income families in its first year. 84% of low-income families say our Bookstart packs delivered as part of Toddler and Pre-schooler prompted them to read and share stories more with their child.
In 2021, we worked with partners in public libraries to introduce BookTrust Storytime. As part of this programme, we collaborate with over 90% of public libraries in England and Northern Ireland, supporting lower income families to engage with their local libraries and go back again and again. 72% of library staff who responded to our survey said they really enjoyed working on BookTrust Storytime.
Strategic outcomes
- More children will have stronger bonds and relationships with their families
- They will have a stronger sense of well-being and achieving strong educational outcomes
- Children from disadvantaged backgrounds will have a stronger sense of the possibilities open to them in life
- More young people will lead wide-ranging creative and cultural lives.
We are working hard to reach the country’s most vulnerable children. In addition to reaching more children in care than ever through our Letterbox Club programme of support, we are partnering with Kinship UK to deliver training for kinship carers and developing a new shared reading offer to help the most vulnerable children.
All of this is on top of our Bookstart Baby programme which reaches over 90% of families in England and Wales with a newborn child each and every year, our Big Welsh Rhyme Time and Pori Drwy Stori programmes in Wales, dual language books in over 35 languages, hundreds of reviews of the very best new children’s books and our BookTrust Represents programme supporting and promoting authors and illustrators of colour.
Now we have started to shout about what works. Our publication Reading Together, Changing Children’s Lives distils a wealth of knowledge, research and real-world insights into a set of actionable recommendations about how we can make reading with young children happen more in those families which have the most to gain.
We will continue to pilot new approaches and programmes in 2024 and share our research and insights even more widely.
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Reading Together
Reading Together, Changing Children’s Lives is based on decades of experience of working with millions of families and thousands of local partners, including health visitors, nurseries, schools, libraries and food banks.
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Understanding the impact of our interventions is central to BookTrust’s work. Find out more about the impact of our programmes and activities.
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Learn more about our range of projects and campaigns, designed to help people of all ages and backgrounds enjoy reading and writing.