JUNE 2024 GROBY SPOTLIGHT online

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12 Groby & Field Head Spotlight • MID-JUNE 2024 • Tel: 01530 244069 • Email: info@grobyspotlight.co.uk When you enjoy coffee and cake at Groby Library you might be giving a child a longer and better life IT MIGHT NOT sound plausible, but they are connected. And it’s great way to justify tucking into one of those delicious cakes in the Time Out cafe. A sceptic might challenge that there is any connection, but it is straightforward. • Firstly, the cafe provides most of the funds needed to keep the library open. No similar cash generative service has been identified, so without the cafe income the annual outgoings could not be met. • Secondly, public libraries are recognised as playing a critical role in the development of child literacy. • Thirdly, studies have shown that areas with a high standard of literacy have higher life expectancy than areas with low literacy levels. Studies have shown that some of the lowest life expectancies in England can be found in children children born into communities with the most serious literacy challenges. An example is Stockton town centre. A boy born there has a life expectancy 26.1 years shorter than a boy born in North Oxford (which has some of the least literacy challenges). Similarly, a girl born in Queensgate, Burnley, has a life expectancy 20.9 years shorter than a girl born in Mayfield, near Royal Tunbridge Wells. A sceptic may then suggest that by comparison Groby is more prosperous than these more deprived areas, but wherever you live raising a family has probably never been as expensive as it is today. Public libraries provide a wealth of literary resources for parents, without the expense of buying books. The sceptic might also argue that Groby Library caters mainly for adult readers, and today’s children are too busy looking at their phones to look at books. But the library has a thriving children’s section and activities such as Wriggly Readers for preschool children, and the Summer Reading Challenge. Last year children’s books made up two thirds of the book issues. By encouraging their children to read from their earliest years, parents are helping local schools give them the best start in life. In 2011, 8 in 10 children and young people who used public libraries considered themselves to be a good reader compared with only 5 in 10 who didn’t. Low literacy is linked to poor health, with an estimated 43% of working-age adults in England lacking the literacy skills they need to understand and make use of everyday health information (known as ‘health literacy’). A child’s early language experiences are the foundation of life-long literacy. The language of stories, the rhythms of nursery rhymes and the familiarity with books build on strong and positive experience of early communication to create the early literacy skills that will eventually enable a child to learn to read and write. As the importance of parenting and home learning has grown, so has the appreciation of the vital role of libraries in supporting early language development. Longitudinal studies employ An example is Stockton town centre. A boy born there has a life expectancy 26.1 years shorter than a boy born in North Oxford (which has some of the least literacy challenges). continuous or repeated measures to follow particular individuals over prolonged periods of time—often years or decades. When the UK’s largest longitudinal study of early development examined the importance of the home learning environment, the activities that libraries promote were demonstrated to be of central importance. Subsequent studies demonstrated that visiting the library was in itself a vital component of a strong home learning environment and at the age of 3 could be seen to impact positively on reading skills in the first years of school. All this means that you needn’t think of the money you spend on your coffee and cake as a guilty pleasure. Instead think of it as a charitable donation that ensures the survival of the library and the benefits to the community that result. The information in this article is based on a post pandemic report entitled Public Libraries and Literacy Recovery which can be read on www. librariesconnected.org.uk. Last time I had a street party I nearly died. I live on the M42.
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