Bookstart Around the World 1
Bookstart Around the World The local libraries ar
e the core of BoekStart, and it is they who implement the programme. This choice was due in part to the fact that it was considered an opportunity to develop libraries in the Netherlands, since it was observed that people visited libraries to a greater extent. Preschool and child healthcare services are important partners in the Netherlands, and collaboration between these entities is currently being developed. 3.5.1 Model The library is the central part of the Dutch model, and when children reach three months of age, gift vouchers for books are sent to the families’ homes. The free books are then collected from the local library. Libraries and their staff have set up BoekStart corners for handing out the gifts, which each consist of a small suitcase containing books, information material and a library card for child. This system reaches about 40 percent of families with children in the Netherlands, which is approximately the number of those who take advantage of the gift vouchers and collect their free books. The role of preschools is mainly to include activities that promote reading to a greater extent in their educational planning, in cooperation with libraries. Some of the ways this is done is through furnishing reading corners on the premises, training, and establishing reading plans in collaboration with libraries. This collaboration takes place on the local level, and approximately a quarter of all preschools are currently involved in some way (Bos, 2019). The role of child healthcare services has mainly been to provide information about BoekStart as much as possible. Since paediatricians and nurses have lacked time and opportunity to work in any other way with BoekStart, ‘BoekStart coaches’ have begun visiting child healthcare centres. It is employees from participating libraries who visit the centres to read with families and inform them about BoekStart. The idea is for them to reach out to more families to provide information about BoekStart. Collaboration between these three parties has been highlighted in the interview as a prerequisite for BoekStart to be able to be fully implemented, since the libraries’ operations are either not large enough or they lack the necessary financial resources. 3.5.2 Research and evaluation As regards evaluation of the local BoekStart initiatives, the national reading foundation has developed a review tool for the organisations. Evaluation is done via a digital survey that childcare workers and library staff are asked to respond to each year. Questions cover such things as reading habits at child healthcare services, and library policies about BoekStart and collaboration therewith. The material is intended to be used at both the national and local levels in order to identify areas needing improvement, as well as to provide support in formulating strategies and policies. Several reviews4 and a major ongoing research project have been conducted regarding BoekStart. In the From BookStart to BookSmart study by Heleen van den Berg (Berg, 2015), BoekStart is described as a lowdosage programme, based on the reasoning that the interventions are simple to do and do not need to be done often. This approach allows efforts to be directed to all families whilst remaining fairly resource efficient (Berg, 2015). The study established a causal relationship between families starting early with reading aloud via BoekStart and the language development in their children. When parents participated in BoekStart, the children’s exposure to books and textoriented activities in the home increased, which, in turn, showed 4. These are only available in languages other than Swedish or English and have not been included in this overview. 16/52