With just a couple of months until the end of the school year, many of us will be looking ahead to the summer holidays. For public libraries, the coming weeks are a pivotal time in their work to support children – and their families – who will be starting school for the first time in September.
This week Libraries Connected launched a new campaign, 'Ready to Learn', which highlights the important role libraries play in helping young children settle in and succeed at school. With concern about a widening ‘school readiness’ gap, attributed at least in part to the pandemic lockdowns, this role is more urgent than ever. Children starting Reception without core learning behaviours could slip behind their peers, with an impact that will be felt across a lifetime.
In our campaign briefing we point to a growing body of evidence that suggests regular library use can help prepare children for formal education. We also present the findings of an exclusive Survation poll of primary teachers, which reveals they are overwhelmingly positive about libraries and firmly agree with us that they can help get children ready for the classroom.
Through our research and consultation with Libraries Connected members, we argue that libraries support ‘school readiness’ in three key ways.
First, they offer a dedicated collection of children’s books and resources, carefully curated to support early literacy and numeracy, as well as social and emotional development. Children’s libraries are comfortable, welcoming and exciting environments that make reading for pleasure irresistible.
Second, libraries run high-quality (and free) early years activities such as ‘rhyme times’ which feature songs, stories and movement. The benefits for children are far reaching: they learn to share and take turns, listen to instructions, experiment with language and enjoy new stories. But they are important for parents too – a pioneering action research project in Essex found that they can improve maternal mental health, one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing in the early years.
And third, they encourage a positive home learning environment by introducing children to the power of books, language, stories and reading. When a child shares a library book with a parent, sings a rhyme time song at home or takes part in a reading challenge, we see the powerful influence libraries can have on the whole family.
As always, libraries have been brilliant at forming partnerships to achieve common goals. Take Newham, for example, where health visitors and librarians have joined forces to support vulnerable young children and families in those crucial preschool years. Or Bradford, whose library service has its own school readiness strategy delivered in partnership with Public Health. Some library services even work with registrars to enrol babies with their local library at birth registration appointments – in North Yorkshire, over a thousand newborns have become library members this way.
Of course, in the current funding climate, and without a national school readiness strategy, we found a mixed picture. In our research for 'Ready to Learn' we came across some local authorities that had school readiness strategies but didn’t mention public libraries in them. We think this is a mistake. We’re calling for libraries to be part of a co-ordinated multi-agency approach alongside children’s services, early years settings and health professionals such as midwives and health visitors.
We also want to see councils promote the benefits of libraries to parents, particularly during the summer months leading up to the start of the new school year. Summer is the perfect time for families to make the most of their local library, with a range of holiday activities on offer and the hugely popular Summer Reading Challenge.
Since their inception over 150 years ago, the mission of public libraries has been to unlock potential, raise aspirations and broaden horizons. They should be at the heart of efforts to ensure children arrive at school ready to learn and flourish.
Isobel Hunter is chief executive of Libraries Connected.
