Developing a Love of Reading

Every nursery room features a welcoming and calming book area, carefully resourced with high-quality books and storytelling materials to inspire children’s curiosity and enjoyment of reading. Books are also available throughout the nursery, ensuring that children can access stories wherever they choose to play and learn. If a child is not ready to come to the book area, we bring books and stories to them, helping every child discover the joy and magic of reading in a way that feels natural and engaging.

Our book collections are regularly refreshed to reflect children’s interests, experiences, and learning needs. Each day, children have opportunities to enjoy stories both in small groups and one-to-one with adults, developing their listening, language, and comprehension skills.

As children become familiar with favourite stories, they begin to develop early reading behaviours, confidently retelling events, discussing characters, and “reading” books independently through pictures and memory. These experiences lay strong foundations for future reading success and foster a lifelong love of books.

As children move on to Reception in primary school, they will begin learning to read through a systematic synthetic phonics programme. This involves learning letter sounds (phonemes) and the letters or letter groups (graphemes) that represent those sounds.

At Abercromby Nursery School, we focus on helping children develop the essential skills they need to be ready for phonics. Through fun and engaging activities, we encourage listening, attention, concentration, and the ability to recognise and distinguish different sounds. Nursery rhymes, songs, stories, music, and listening games all play an important role in building these early literacy skills.

By developing these strong foundations, we help children become confident learners who are well prepared for the next stage of their reading journey when they start school.

To find out more about how we support children in preparing for phonics, please watch our video below.

Reading with your child at home is one of the most valuable ways you can support their learning and language development. Sharing stories together helps to build a love of reading, develop vocabulary, and create special opportunities for conversation and enjoying books together.

We encourage families to join their local library, where children can explore and borrow a wide range of books to enjoy at home.

At Abercromby Nursery School, we also offer our Book Home Scheme. Children choose a book with their key person and bring it home in a special book bag to help keep it clean and dry. Families can enjoy reading the book together before returning it to nursery and choosing a new one.

We are proud to offer a selection of dual-language books, featuring stories in English alongside another community language, such as Arabic. These books allow children and families to share stories in both languages, supporting bilingual development while celebrating the rich diversity of our nursery community.

We hope our Book Home Scheme helps foster a lifelong love of books and reading for every child.

Making the Most of Story Time

Once your child becomes familiar with a favourite story, you may like to try an approach called Dialogic Reading. This interactive way of sharing books encourages children to talk about the story by answering questions, making predictions, and discussing characters and events. Research has shown that these conversations can help develop children’s language, communication, and thinking skills.

You will receive information about Dialogic Reading in your child’s book bag, or you can find out more by reading our information sheet here: Abercromby Dialogic Reading