John Healey: An education and an inspiration... library that teaches children a first love of reading

In almost 15 years as an MP, one of the very best things I have done has been as a dad, when our son first went to primary school. Every Friday afternoon during that reception year, for nearly an hour, I read with children in my son’s class — one to one, outside in the corridor, perched on those small chairs.

Some, at the start, could read fluently and had a big appetite for books, but we spent a whole month with one little girl teaching her to recognise two letters, an R and a D – the initials of her first and second names. The difference lay in what had happened to those kids at home before they came to school.

It hit home how important early reading was to giving a child a good start in life and at school – and the importance of learning at home, not just in school.

As I have gone on and looked harder, it has become clear that this conclusion is strongly supported by academic studies as well as anecdotally. The Institute of Education did a report which noted that “the quality of early years HLE (home learning environment) promoted intellectual and social development in all children” and that reading at home was an important part of cultivating that environment.

What parents do is much more important than who they are. The Institute of Education report came to an important conclusion: “The case study findings on pupils who ‘succeeded against the odds’ showed that what they had in common was higher scores on the early years home learning environment.”

Given the clear link between early reading, the home environment, a child’s development and successful learning, let us keep in mind this stark fact: one in three young people do not have books of their own.

Teachers in Rotherham report that there are children who, without the books they receive from the Imagination Library, would have no books at home at all.

As Labour in government, we set up the Bookstart scheme, which took some useful steps in providing all young children with the opportunity – the gift to read – at home.

However, the Imagination Library takes a running leap over the limitations of the Bookstart scheme by ensuring that all children, wherever they live and whoever they live with, regularly receive their own books directly at home. Something similar was first started in the United States by Dolly Parton, who has backed our scheme. I am proud that the first Imagination Library in this country was set up in Rotherham. We now have more than 13,600 children, all aged between nought and five, receiving a book a month. Those signed up to the scheme at birth will have received their own library of 60 books in total by the age of five.

Importantly, nine out of 10 of our Rotherham youngsters are signed up to the scheme. It has been running for four years now, but no child will have completed the full five years of the programme before the summer of next year, 2013. It is therefore still too early to draw conclusive evidence about its long-term effects.

However, Rotherham has seen a year-on-year improvement in young pupils achieving a good level of development at the foundation stage, with 50 per cent in 2009 and 58 per cent in 2011.

Above all, our Rotherham scheme shows the power of a parcel arriving with a child’s name on it and their own book inside. It sparks a kid’s imagination from the very earliest age, giving every young child a better start in life and a better chance to read.

Teachers, parents and – most importantly of all – children love the scheme. It fires a desire in the child to read, but it often fires a determination to do so in the family as well. I was with a group of parents and their young kids in Rawmarsh about 10 days ago, and one of the dads was telling me how excited his son was whenever the postman arrived. He thought that every parcel was for him; it was like Christmas every month.

One of the mums said that whenever her daughter got a new book, she would bring it directly to her and demand that she read it as soon as it arrived.

What about the cost? The Rotherham Imagination Library, which is funded by the council, cost about £300,000 to run last year. The scheme costs £2 per child per month, and that covers the cost of the books and the postage. That is £24 for each child each year, or £120 over the full five years. Let us compare that to the average spending on each child in the country during their primary school years. Last year, it was £4,139.

I ask Ministers to take a serious look at our Rotherham scheme and to work with us to evaluate fully its potential to be widely followed across the country. Secondly, I ask them to look hard at how the scheme could be extended, and to make a start by backing the young children who start life facing the biggest hurdles. They include children who are in care, babies born to mums who are in prison and children whose parents are serving in our UK armed forces.

Our experience and the academic evidence show that getting our kids to love reading often happens at home before school, but children in care can miss out on that. Once they fall behind, many never catch up.

• John Healey is the Labour MP for Wentworth. This is an edited version of a speech he delivered in the House of Commons this week on early years reading.