Bookstart Baby
Every child in England, Wales and Northern Ireland aged 0 to 12 months is eligible for our free book pack, designed to help families to read and share stories with their child from as early as possible.
About Bookstart Baby
Families with babies up to 12 months in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are eligible for a free Bookstart Baby pack, with a billingual pack offered in Wales. These packs are a great way to support early development and are provided through health visitors, libraries, registrars and many other partners working in the early years.
How Bookstart Baby is delivered
In each local authority, Bookstart Baby is administrated and coordinated by a Bookstart Coordinator who works with local partners to allocate the resources to the best effect.
If you are a parent/carer looking to receive a Bookstart Baby pack, use this link to contact your Bookstart Coordinator.
If you are interested in delivering Bookstart Baby in your setting, email [email protected] to find out who your local Bookstart Coordinator is.
The packs provide an important emphasis about the importance of sharing books in enabling speech development for children. The books themselves illustrate what a useful children’s book looks like. Discussing their use provides an opportunity to focus on how and when to share books with small children.
Bookstart Baby gifter
Inside the packs
Bookstart Baby pack in England and Northern Ireland
The Bookstart Baby pack includes a book, finger puppet, a library leaflet, and tips for sharing stories with babies .
The pack contains:
- a brilliant book, specially selected to support healthy development in babies and is fun to read again and again
- a colourful finger puppet
- a helpful leaflet about how reading can change as a baby develops.
Additional books are available in other languages for English as an additional language (EAL) families and parental guidance is also available to download and print in 20 languages.
The Bookstart Baby pack includes a book, finger puppet, a library leaflet, and and tips for sharing stories with babies.
The pack contains:
- a bilingual book, specially selected to support healthy development in babies and is fun to read again and again
- a colourful finger puppet
- a helpful leaflet about how reading can change as a baby develops
- a leaflet with information about joining your local library.
I have seen communication skills improve and social wellbeing improve when children learn and interact with familiar rhymes and stories. This is also a good way to encourage a healthy bond with child and carer.
Community nursery nurse
Benefits of Bookstart Baby
By raising awareness that babies love books, Bookstart Baby can have a profound impact on families and children.
When we surveyed the professionals who gift the packs, they said that Bookstart Baby can:
- increase parents’ knowledge of the importance of shared reading (86%)
- support parents to share books with their baby from an early age (88%)
- encourage shared reading as part of a daily routine (87%)
- increase parents’ knowledge of where they can access books, stories and rhymes (87%)
- increase how often parents read with their baby (80%)
- increase the amount of quality time parents and babies spend together (76%)
Source: Percentage of 313 professionals agreeing that the above statements hold true for all, most or some families (Bookstart Baby gifter survey 2019).
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Reading in the Early Years: Why starting shared reading early matters and the role of Bookstart Baby
What our research with families from low-income backgrounds in the UK tells us about the importance of shared reading in the early years, and how our Bookstart Baby programmes can support this.
If you’re a parent or carer
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Looking for something fun as a family? Enjoy storytime with our free online books and videos, play games, win prizes, or even learn how to draw some of your favourite characters.