The foundation for learning to read and write
Early literacy skills can also help children in other areas, such as problem solving, creativity, memory, and maths. The best way you can help your child develop early literacy skills, and therefore give them a strong foundation for all of their future learning, is to read, talk, sing, and play with them every day.
Reading and singing to your child exposes them to new words. Children learn their first words from day-to-day activities. The more exposure they have to different words, the more they will begin to use them in their vocabulary, and the stronger foundations they will have for formal literacy skill development at school.
YPRL is committed to supporting early years literacy development in a variety of ways. Storytime sessions are run weekly and include specialised content for babies, toddlers and pre-school children. These interactive sessions are held in branches across YPRL and are a fantastic way for parents and carers to learn and develop their confidence in reading stories and singing songs regularly at home.
YPRL supports families where English is a second language. Our LOTE collections include books for children, and many of our branches provide storytime sessions in another language. Exposing a child to more than one language also exposes them to more words.
YPRL is proud to share the library storytime experience online by promoting Australian Books and Reading through the ALIA and Australia Reads program. The pilot agreement enables YPRL to reach children and families who cannot come to storytime sessions at our branches — for example, during public health closure periods, where both parents are working and cannot attend their local library — as well as socially disadvantaged areas where transportation options are limited, and to support rural and remote areas.
Online storytime schedule:
- Mondays – Baby Storytime
- Wednesdays – Toddler Storytime
- Fridays – Preschool Storytime
All sessions air on our Facebook Page at 10:00AM.
YPRL have a fantastic range of resources available for children and parents including our junior picture books and board books available for borrowing. There is also an extensive range of parenting books in our catalogue along with numerous online articles and tutorials, which are free to access and available on the early years literacy section of our website.
Your library card offers you access to numerous eLearning resources including Busy Things, where families and kids can play fun and educational games; LOTE online for Kids, where you can explore the magic of books in other languages; Kanopy Kids, where you can stream movies and television series and many more. Story Box Library is available to access online from our eLibrary and is a fantastic resource for reading and listening to stories together from home. You are able to create your own playlists of stories you might be interested in later and many stories even have an accompanying activity available for download.
YPRL are proud to be a fine-free library, which removes barriers for parents and children borrowing items. At YPRL, children are never too young to have their own library card, start your child's love affair with reading and libraries early by setting them up with a membership online or in any of our library branches.