Nursery World - Children's radio to boost literacy

A unique digital radio service for children to be launched early next year could help pre-school language and literacy development. Abracadabra will be the first all-day, every day radio service in Britain for children aged up to ten. It is due to go on air in London in January 2002. Digital Radio Group, a consortium that has won the right to broadcast 11 services in London, will air singalong music mixes, nursery rhymes, light classics, stories and quizzes. It hopes the radio station will go nationwide if the London project is successful.

Abracadabra will be the first all-day, every day radio service in Britain for children aged up to ten. It is due to go on air in London in January 2002. Digital Radio Group, a consortium that has won the right to broadcast 11 services in London, will air singalong music mixes, nursery rhymes, light classics, stories and quizzes. It hopes the radio station will go nationwide if the London project is successful.

Susan Stranks, co-ordinator of the National Campaign for Children's Radio, said, 'Abracadabra is a wonderful potential use of digital radio and we are trying to get digital radio into all state-funded and private nurseries in Greater London. We plan to do an evaluation of our service in nurseries and hope to show how good radio is for the early years.

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