Interview - Julia Eccleshare

The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education has launched a campaign to help practitioners and parents instil a love of reading and books in children before they start school.

How did you come up with Sharing Stories, and why?

Everyone knows that book ownership matters in terms of giving children a good start in literacy. But at CLPE we have always believed that a book alone can't do all the work. Our work with families across Southwark showed us that many parents need a lot of encouragement and support to feel confident about book sharing.

The idea behind Sharing Stories was twofold. The first was to give parents an easy way of discovering the pleasure of book sharing through the visuals of a DVD and a highly illustrated booklet. We chose the best advocates we know - other parents and their babies - who we filmed in our weekly Bookstart Plus sessions and in their own homes, talking about how and why they share stories. Watching other parents' experience, especially at maintaining home languages and English, is the perfect way to build confidence.

The second idea was that we wanted there to be a great many more places where new parents could find out about books. We therefore put the Sharing Stories booklet, with a supporting DVD, at the core of a toolkit or training pack that will give anyone working with new parents and pre-school children everything they need to inspire and inform parents about book sharing. The hour-long training session, which includes showing the 15-minute DVD, is easy to deliver and will provide the necessary encouragement and support for parents when they enjoy the booklet and DVD in their home.

What benefits will the campaign have for children and parents?

The campaign spreads the benefits of book sharing so that a much wider group of parents and children can enjoy it. Not everyone has the confidence to join a group, especially if English is not their first language, but everyone feels safe finding things out at home. Watching the video or reading the booklet, which comes in five languages, will inspire parents with greater confidence, both in choosing books and in ways of encouraging their children to join in.

How does the training pack work?

The training pack gives professionals a clear outline of how to run a book sharing session. It makes suggestions about gathering and displaying books for a session, setting the film in a context, leading a discussion after watching the film and handing out the booklets and DVDs.

Training packs and accompanying sets of the booklet and DVD can be bought from http://www.clpe.co.uk/parents-families/sharing-stories.