Nursery World - Campaign calls on dads to read with their children

BookTrust has launched a campaign to get the nation reading, after research reveals that only one in three children are read a story every day by their dads.

A story being shared together at North Bridlington Library in Yorkshire, PHOTO: BookTrust

The Dads Make Stories Magic campaign involves a four-week storytelling challenge, starting today (14 June), with the goal of reaching a million minutes of shared storytime across the UK by 14 July.

It is backed by authors Michael Morpurgo, Nick Butterworth and David Walliams and is a joint collaboration between BookTrust and children’s publishers Farshore and HarperCollins .

Research undertaken by Nielsen BookData found that only 29 percent of children from birth to age 13 were read to ‘every day or nearly every day’ by their dads in 2022.

A survey by reading charity BookTrust of 2,148 parents and carers from low-income backgrounds, 626 of which were fathers or stepfathers, also found that 76 per cent of dads that read with their children find it rewarding.

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