Reading Rights: 'Why can’t everyone have a piece of this joy?'

It's Chattertime at Linaker Family Wellbeing Centre, Southport. The colourful, inviting space is filled with different zones where a handful of toddlers and their grown-ups can interact with soft toys, wooden blocks, puppets, textures and beautiful picture books.

Waterstones Children's Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce is here today to speak with practitioners and parents whose children have been referred here for some extra support with their speech and language. He wants to deepen his understanding of how books and stories are at the heart of targeted interventions like this one during the first 1,001 days of a child's life.

Storytelling expertise to support speech and language

Kathryn Wright is the early years practitioner leading the family hub's weekly Chattertime sessions. She floats between each family, offering support and sharing her evidence-based practical tips with the adults in how they help encourage their child's speech to progress. Her creativity shines through in the way she's curated the space – and filled it with her own storytelling creations, such as decorated shoeboxes containing conversation prompts for families to discover.

The gentle, relaxed session is child-led, with the freedom to engage with whatever sparks their interest, all with the aim of nurturing speech and language development. Books are dotted across every play zone for children to pick up and interact with at their own pace.

At the end of the session, Kathryn leads a storytime – this week it's Dear Zoo – with another shoebox of fun props to aid discussions around the words on each page. Each family is also gifted one of BookTrust's Bookstart Toddler packs, with shared reading tips and quality picture books to take home and keep.

Seeing positive changes within weeks

Laura is here at Chattertime today with her son, Elliot. "We got referred here because his speech is a bit delayed," she says. "We've done two sessions so far, and he's started to recognise animals and insects. That's all come from looking at books and me going: 'What's that?'"

Meanwhile, Georgina has seen significant progress in her daughter's development in a matter of weeks through attending Chattertime: "At Nola's two-year check, I had some concerns around her speech - and the health visitor recommended this," she says.

"Kathryn goes round to each child, gets down on their level, and talks them through whatever activity they're doing. She says words and has the children repeat them back.

"We sit and read a little book every week and Kathryn encourages us to take books from the book corner home. Last week, Kathryn did a circle time and read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She had little toy fruits that the hungry caterpillar was eating in the story, which she was throwing for each child to catch. It was so interactive, and Nola got really excited about it. Afterwards, the children played with the toy fruit and spoke about the caterpillar."

Georgina adds: "Since coming here, I have noticed Nola's speech has been improving a lot. I've also noticed she's started to sound out the letters, wanting to hold books and read herself. That's all happened over the last couple of weeks, which is really great to see."

Shared reading interventions at family hubs

As a family hub, Linaker Family Wellbeing Centre offers a range of targeted support for individuals aged 0-19 and families in the local community, including maternity services, counselling, mental health support, and health interventions.

"Developing a love of books from a very early age is critical to the work we do," says Majella Maguire, Early Help and Family Hubs Locality Manager for Sefton Council. "We try to include sharing books within all of our programmes, including our home learning interventions with families.

"We use the BookTrust resources, and we invest time in training our workforce around things like supporting parents in reading to their bump, and books for babies and toddlers. We see shared reading as being instrumental – and woven into - all the work we do.

"If we could, we would love to have our Chattertime sessions running more frequently. And we would like to develop more Early Years interventions based around speech and language development and sharing books. I've seen the impact it has on families.

"When you break down those intergenerational barriers to sharing books and give people that confidence to share a book, the benefits are endless. The joy of sharing a book with a child - that joint attention to one activity, where you're both engaged in that experience - it is priceless."

Reading Rights: Reflections from Frank

After spending the afternoon at Linaker Family Hub, Frank Cottrell-Boyce says: "This Chattertime is making a huge difference to families – and it costs nothing, really. Kathryn is doing this with a Pritt stick, some shoeboxes, and a copy of Dear Zoo. She's making this intervention that's making a huge difference with a tiny number of resources.

"This demonstrates we know how to do it. We know what best practice around shared reading in the Early Years looks like. But some people have travelled miles to come to this session. Why can't we roll this out wider? Why can't we share this best practice? Why can't everyone have a piece of this joy?"

Find out more about the Waterstones Children's Laureate's Reading Rights campaign