A free visit to your local library offers countless opportunities to support development and promote a love of reading, says Karen Hart…
I recently accompanied a nursery group of two- and three-year-olds on a visit to our local library. Given their previous visit had been to a big park with a sandpit, lots of climbing frames and a twirly slide, I was wondering if this outing might fall a bit flat. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong!
Before the visit we talked to the children about libraries. Although everyone had visited the library before, not many appeared to borrow books regularly.
We talked about the types of things that go on in our library. In common with many others these days, it organises parent and toddler groups, play days, and special holiday activities – children loved to share their stories.
We also talked about not running and shouting in the library, as people would be working on computers and reading. We explained that walking and talking is fine.
When we got there, the first thing children wanted to do was have a good sort through all the books – a little activity in its own right.
In nursery, they had been looking at animals that hatch out of eggs. I suggested that if anyone found any books about animals that lay eggs, these could be good ones to borrow.
It was a treasure hunt from that moment on. We found some really good books on the subject to take back with us.
Once we had a pile of interesting books, I read some to the children. There was a real mixture, including stories from well-known CBeebies TV shows, books about bugs, and an activity book about going to the dentist. Everyone wanted a turn at pulling the tabs and lifting the flaps.
We finished our visit by having a walk around the library to see the various areas:
We took some interesting leaflets back to the nursery with us to look at later. Every child was allowed to choose one book to take back to nursery with them. Children checked them out themselves using the automated book scanner – a new little skill they accomplished.
Back at the nursery, we talked about our outing, read some of our chosen books (with others put aside for the rest of the week), looked at the leaflets, and talked about everything we’d seen.
The library visit was a real success – a local outing that was completely free and left children with a sense of accomplishment through:
I asked children why they thought we had libraries. One little girl said, “To give everyone a nice day,” which I suppose is the right answer!
Library visits cover multiple areas of development, from walking to the site with friends (personal, social and emotional development) to looking at books and listening to stories (communication and language).
However, the biggest benefit is their potential to sow the seeds of a lifelong love of reading. The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, recently urged parents to “put their phones down and pick up a book”. This was as part of a government campaign to improve reading habits and make more children school-ready.
The announcement comes as the government prepares to launch its Best Start in Life strategy. This includes new funding for partnerships between schools and local nurseries to “strengthen transitions into school and break down barriers from day one”.
In support of this initiative, the Department for Education and the National Literacy Trust have joined forces to launch a National Year of Reading, starting in January 2026.
This will kickstart a reading revolution with the aim of reversing the decline in reading for pleasure among children and young people – just one in three aged eight to 18 said they enjoyed reading in their free time in 2025.
After our visit we talked about all the different types of books there are: funny books, scary books, map books, guidebooks, etc.
One type of book that might not be thought of is the joke book. We had a lot of fun making some with our three-year-olds.
Begin by telling some jokes. Some good ones for this age group could be:
Why didn’t the skeleton go to the dance? Because he had no body to go with!
How does the sea say hello? It just waves!
What do you call a sleeping dinosaur? A dino-snore!
What kind of flowers grow on your face? Tu-lips!
What do you call a donkey with three legs? A Wonkey!
Go on to print these out so that everyone has a set of jokes. We helped children make their own simple joke books by folding A5 sheets of paper in half and fixing these together with a length of string.
Children then cut out the pre-printed jokes and glued each one onto a separate page in their books. They drew their own pictures on the pages next to the jokes so they could be “the illustrator”.
We finished our books by writing “Joke Book” on the cover and adding the child’s name as though they were the author. This meant they looked like the books we’d been looking at in nursery. Children traced over our writing for this.
For this activity, simply collect a selection of picture books, then once a week have a book-swap day, where children can choose a book to take home for the week.
Ask parents if they can share the books with their children. Ask them to bring them back in one week’s time to allow children to share their thoughts on what they borrowed during circle time.
This is a lovely activity for furthering communication and language and personal, social and emotional development. It encourages independent choosing and responsibility for looking after a borrowed object, and also helps to foster a love of books.
1 Let the library know you’re planning a visit to make sure it doesn’t clash with other activities they may be holding. Some libraries will offer to hold a story-reading session for your children if they know in advance.
2 Use your visit to explore new vocabulary. Children love to learn words that seem grown-up, such as librarian, author, illustrator, photocopier, fiction and non-fiction. Don’t worry if they forget the new words; building vocabulary is all about increasing your connection with words organically over time.
3 Allow children to take part in the checking-out and returning of books to encourage independence and autonomy.
4 Encourage children to make their own choices by picking books to look at and borrow, exerting their own preferences, and deciding for themselves which titles they are interested in.
5 Make your visits a regular occurrence. By familiarising themselves with the library, children begin to see themselves as readers and library-goers.
Karen Hart is an Early Years specialist, drama teacher and writer.
