Story Starters is a volunteer-based early literacy programme delivered by Every Child Our Future in partnership with Coram Beanstalk. Running across government and private day nurseries in Jersey since 2021, the programme brings trained volunteers into settings to share stories one-to-one with nursery aged children.
Through these regular reading sessions, Story Starters helps children build essential early literacy skills, grow in confidence, and develop a positive relationship with books. By creating moments of shared reading, the programme sparks curiosity and imagination, igniting a lifelong love of reading for pleasure from the very start of a child’s learning journey.
Reading aloud to young children can help boost their vocabulary by 1.4 million words.
Source: Journal of Developmental and Behavioural Paediatrics, Sept 2023
I read to you!
We consider our Story Starters part of our nursery family and wouldn’t be without them. The children thrive from this opportunity, and we can clearly see how their love of books grows and develops during the year. The volunteers provide feedback to me as the class teacher and often send home positive praise to parents via their postcards. The Story Starters initiative is an extremely important and valuable part of our learning in nursery.
I have noticed increased confidence in the children I read with.