Boosting Childhood Reading Rates in Australia

Reading rates in Australia are declining at a rapid rate. The increased use of phones and digital devices have replaced books for many people, and our kids are seeing this example. As we know, reading is very important for our childrens’ development, so boosting childhood reading rates in Australia is something we should all play a part in.

There are many ways you can increase reading rates at home. From getting the whole family involved to increasing your child’s interest in reading through fun Busy Books, it’s never too late to start. This is how you can spark your child’s love of reading and help unlock their potential.

Why Boosting Childhood Reading Rates is Important in Helping Children Reach Their Potential

Reading is very important for your child’s development. It can help increase their vocabulary, expand their knowledge, giving them more confidence and more. Once they learn to love reading, they are more likely to continue reading into adulthood, continuing their thirst for knowledge and developing their skills. Boosting childhood reading rates is essential for helping unlock potential in children.

Ways reading helps unlock childhood potential:

• Learning empathy.
• Enhancing imagination and creativity.
• Instilling a love of learning.
• Driving interest in their passions.
• Improving listening skills through shared reading.
• Developing social and emotional skills.
• Building attention span.

How You Can Help Increase Your Child’s Reading Rates With Busy Books

They’re fun.

Kids love getting hands on. Busy Books are a hands-on form of reading, having kids read words and complete activities to show their understanding. By using examples that are fun to children, they can learn how to read, count and develop skills through farm animals, the world around us and more. 

For example, kids can learn their colours by matching coloured hats on pandas with the name of the colour in the Colours, Shapes & Patterns Busy Book. Rather than just have kids name the colour of a coloured square, the cute coloured hats on pandas helps get and hold your child’s interest in a cute, fun way. 

You can do them together.

Busy Books are great to do with your child, to do as a family or for them to even work through with friends. When children read with parents, siblings or friends, they get the benefits of social bonding time and having support if they are struggling in a particular area. It helps them grow their confidence in reading, encouraging them to continue their reading journey.

The Let’s Talk Together Busy Book has been made specifically to be read and used between an adult and child. There are activities for parents or adults to walk kids through to improve their listening skills, as well as learning time, seasons, size, body functions and more.

Children can explore their interests.

A key to helping increase your child’s reading rates is by giving them books that give them more knowledge about their interests. When they are already passionate about a topic, they will love getting to learn more about it, and books can give them endless knowledge. You can even find books featuring kids’ favourite TV characters, helping make it easier to swap screen time for reading time.

Busy Books tap into common interests in children to help increase their interest in reading. Books like Community & Construction capture a child’s interest by using fun, colourful images of tradespeople, machinery, tools and more to share information about the world of construction. But as kids name tools, match job titles with animated characters in uniforms and more, they are expanding their language skills, trace lines to help them shape letters and more. 

“My little 2.5 year old absolutely loves this book! He already loved construction and trucks but this book has him even more engaged and he loves learning the new things. We have 5 busy books now and my little one uses them almost every day and it’s always a feature when we have other kids over – everyone loves them. Would highly recommend. We don’t do screen time and he isn’t yet in childcare and the books have provided us with more structured learning which is great for him, but also for me!” Blair Collier

Interactive elements hold interest.

If your child has a short attention span, you may find it difficult to get them to focus on a book for too long. We know once kids start reading, they likely don’t want to stop, so getting their initial attention is crucial. Busy Books use fun illustrations and interactive elements to capture and then hold attention in even the most easily distracted child.

Interactive elements, like cut outs, templates to trace and other activities help to get kids involved and keep their focus on the task at hand. They won’t even realise they’re actually learning how to write letters and numbers in their Alphabet, Numbers & Writing Skills books while they’re busy tracing, placing missing numbers and letter cut outs, completing the clock numbers and more. 

There are books to develop on specific skills.

Busy Books are created to work on different skills with different activities for your child to work on as they age and develop. Whether your child is experiencing a developmental delay or is showing an interest in one area of their schooling over another, there are Busy Books designed to help tap into their growing interests. 

For example, Starting With Sounds and Now We’re Reading were both developed by speech pathologist Mariah Apostolopoulas to specifically help children with their early literacy skills. They follow the science of reading and use bright, colourful illustrations to help children learn new skills while working through activities that make reading time feel like fun. 

“Every book we make at Busy Books Australia has been worked on by a relevant industry professional. For example, the Let’s Talk Together Busy Book was created by award-winning speech pathologist Emily Mackie to help ensure the contents of the books are built on the foundations to help develop a child’s reading rate and skillset.”

Frequently Asked Questions