Books in Homes has been successful in growing communities of happy readers.
Cost Effectiveness
This project has been one of the most worthwhile and cost effective programmes, through increasing the exposure and contact of my students to literacy in the home. It plays a vital role in helping them not only learn to read, but to experience the joy of reading for pleasure.
School Attendance
The high quality new books provided by Books in Homes are special to the children and their families, as they are not second hand cast offs. The books are valued as a gift, the children are excited to receive them and therefore excited about reading them. After choosing their books from the catalogue, each morning students often bombard me with “Are the books here yet?” These books have also provided great incentive for school attendance.
Read for Fun
Being in Education Support, I have come to understand how some of our students feel about reading. These include: It's boring, it’s too hard, it’s not important and it’s just no fun.
However, when each class comes into the library to look at the books on offer from Books In Homes, a few things happen,
1) Faces light up and the first spoken words are, “Yeah, Books In Homes.”
2) Watching and listening to the children as they pick up the books and begin laughing, reading and scanning through books.
3) Telling me they love the fact they get to select the books they want, and that they get to choose them three times a year.
Children need to recognise that reading books can be practised and enjoyed at home too. Therefore, it is important for family to be the first teachers of young children to show value in reading and learning. Reading books is also about children enjoying time with their families. I believe the Books in Homes Programme is an excellent initiative to engage parents and caregivers in their children's language and literacy learning.
Staff Engagement
Allens values our relationship with Books in Homes and St Brendan’s Primary School very highly. For the staff, the opportunity to see first-hand the joy that the books bring to the kids, and knowing that we are playing a part in helping their education, is hugely rewarding!
