10,000 free books for children in Wales’ most disadvantaged communities
9 Apr 2014 04:10 PM
The Welsh Government has
announced new funding to provide 10,000 free books to children living in the
most disadvantaged parts of Wales
Deputy Minister for Tackling
Poverty Vaughan Gething has revealed that children living in Flying Start areas
will benefit from free books to help continued learning at home. Each book bag
will contain a bilingual and an English language book, a set of crayons and a
scribble pad.
Flying Start aims to make a
decisive difference to the lives of children under the age of four and their
families in the most deprived communities. It offers parents free quality
childcare for 2-3 year olds, parenting support, an enhanced health visitor
service and help for early language development.
A key part of Flying Start is
developing a child’s language. The extra books will allow health visitors
to highlight to parents the importance of reading with their children to
improve their language development.
The books, costing
£100,000, will be available from this month and will be in addition to
those provided by the Welsh Government backed Bookstart programme, which gives
free bilingual book packs to every child in Wales at nine-months and two-years
old.
Vaughan Gething
said:
“A child’s early
language skills are hugely important to their later learning outcomes and their
life chances. The link between home reading and a child’s future
achievement is well known and that is why we are funding these extra books for
children in Flying Start areas. Research shows that a pupil’s
reading scores are higher and improve more quickly in families who are engaged
in reading activities at home. Promoting the impact that parents have in
helping their children learn at home is important for both the child's
learning journey and parental aspiration. We know that a number of parents
return to education and training as a result of being engaged in their
child's learning.
“Flying Start coordinators
on the ground have told us how useful these books are in engaging parents to
help their children read and learn. This approach is central to our work to
make sure all children, no matter where they are born, have the right start in
life and the same opportunities as others.”
23,579 children are currently
benefitting from Flying Start and Ministers want the scheme to cover 36,000
children and their families by 2016. The Welsh Government is investing more
than £275 million of revenue funding into the programme over the four
years of the expansion (2012-16) and £25 million of capital funding to
develop the infrastructure.