Five top tips for Bookstart Corner
Burton Library's first Bookstart Corner sessions in 2019 were a great success. Here, Burton's Liz Gardner shares her top tips for getting the most out of the programme for the whole family.
Find out more about how Burton Library approached Bookstart Corner
1. Establish a structure
It’s important to make sure each session follows a familiar structure, so parents and children know what to expect. It also helps them build their confidence to join in. Each session started with everyone singing a song, getting them excited for the activities to come!
'The sessions were good. I looked forward to going along every week and learning more things to help my child.' Parent
2. Have fun making vowel sounds
Make the sounds of vowels, pulling silly faces to emphasise how the letters form in your mouth. You can also play with pitch by thinking about vowels as mountains and consonants as valleys. Try singing a song like Little Green Frog that has lots of vowel sounds. Babies mirror the actions from 12 weeks – a response parents find rewarding when they know what to look for!
'The best thing about this is the confidence it has given me in talking and reading with him even at such a young age. Liz was brilliant at giving lots of tips about getting his dad more involved with it as well and it’s really helped us to read and talk to him as a couple rather than me just doing it and his dad thinking it isn’t something he should or could do.' Parent
3. Give children the confidence to join in
Helping children recognise that their voice is important is a great way to build their confidence socially and emotionally, as well as with language. An activity like Shake and Stop – where parent’s play a musical instrument and pause for their child’s response – can show them the importance of waiting for their child’s response when asking a question or doing an activity together.
You can show parents the different ways children respond to an adult interacting with them, from babies babbling, making faces or moving around, to older children talking and playing.
4. Translate what they’ve learnt into reading ideas
All the activities you do with parents can be used to make reading more engaging. Emphasising vowel sounds and making silly faces turns reading into a fun bonding activity for parents and their children, while pausing while you read to wait for a child’s response builds their confidence.
5. You can’t ignore rhymes!
Rhymes are a particularly important feature of Bookstart Corner. I got all the groups join in with a Rhyme Challenge, ending it by making their own certificates to celebrate their achievements.
As many languages are more rhythmical than English, rhymes can be an intuitive way for families to speak and read with their children. I encouraged families with ESOL to bring in rhymes in their first language to share with the group. This even resulted in native English-speaking families asking for dual-language books so they could explore the rhythm of different languages with their child!
Burton Library partnered with East Staffordshire Children’s Centre and Winshill Outreach Centre to deliver Bookstart Corner to small groups of families.