New take on 'Listen With' programme

Wednesday 8th February 2012

An online literary project is being set up to get children interested in reading from a young age.

Listen With Lorraine is designed to help families listen to stories together, to help parents re-discover their love of reading and show mums and dads how to bring stories to life when reading aloud.

The project, from Bulwell Community Toy Library in Nottingham, was inspired by the classic BBC Radio programme Listen With Mother which featured songs, stories and nursery rhymes for children under five. It had about one million listeners when it broadcast between 1950 and 1982.

Steve Parkinson, project manager at the toy library, said: "Reading to children has all kinds of benefits for both children and grown-ups. Reading is a great way to bond with your baby and develop their speech, language and communication skills, while research shows that reading to children at home can help them to be more successful at school, and in their personal life.

"We wanted to find a fun and easy way of helping families to enjoy listening to stories together which will hopefully inspire them to explore more books together.

"Worryingly, the number of children who don't own a book is increasing. Seven years ago, one child in 10 didn't have a book of their own, while now it's one in three. That's really sad and we want to do something about reversing that trend."

The toy library wants to hear from Nottinghamshire children's authors who would be happy to have their stories included on the Listen With Lorraine website.

Steve added: "We'd love to feature local authors' stories on Listen With Lorraine to help them reach a new audience of young readers. Plus, local authors are great role models for our children, in terms of inspiring them to enjoy reading and even write their own stories in the future."

To find out more call Steve Parkinson on 0115 9753898 or email .

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