The Government's Sure Start, Extended Schools and Families Unit announced details of the new funding for Bookstart on Tuesday, a year after Chancellor Gordon Brown made known the plans to increase it in his spending review.
Over the next three years, Booktrust, the independent charity that coordinates the Bookstart scheme, will receive 27m to distribute nine million books to children. These will be given out by health visitors in clinics, at children's libraries and in early years settings.
The expansion programme, which will be launched in October 2005, will enable Bookstart to roll out the Bookstart Plus Bag at 18 months and My Bookstart Treasure Box for three-to-four year-olds. So far, these initiatives have only been distributed in Sure Start areas.
New parents currently receive a bag containing two baby books, a booklet explaining how and why to share books with young children, a booklist and an invitation to join the local library from their local health visitors at their child's eight-month health check.
Announcing the new fund at the Portman Early Childhood Centre in Paddington, London, on Tuesday, education secretary, Ruth Kelly, said, 'All the evidence shows us that children whose parents are engaged in their learning early do better at school.
'Every child deserves the best start in life and there is no better time to get parents into the habit of reading with their child than when they are little.'
