Doorstep Library

Resource type: Reading mentors

Price band: Free

Key stage: KS1, KS2, EYFS

Region(s): All of UK

Doorstep Library provides home-based reading support and mentoring to children and families living in areas of disadvantage. The charity works with young children under the age of 12 to introduce them to the pleasures and benefits of reading and improve their access to books.

Trained volunteers work with up to five families for a year, providing in-person or online reading sessions every week during term time. Volunteers bring a selection of books to read and share during their 20-minute session. The books can then be left on loan to allow children to explore further and to encourage parents and carers to read with their children between sessions.

Online sessions typically use e-books but participants also receive a free book of their choice every half term.

Doorstep Library currently operates 15 in-person projects across London but is expanding its online home reading services to include families in under-resourced areas across the UK.

Schools can refer families who would benefit from Doorstep Library’s service directly to the charity, or can share information about the charity’s work with families so that they can self-refer.

Cost: Free.

About Doorstep Library: Doorstep Library is a community-focused literacy charity that has been fighting inequality in education since 2010. Its goal is to help children develop the self-confidence and essential skills they need to access all the opportunities that will come their way in life.

Literacy Hive Likes

Reading sessions are child-led and volunteers have access to a library of books to enable them to find titles that will appeal to the children that they are working with.
Doorstep volunteers develop strong and supportive relationships with the families that they work with and can signpost them to a wider range of cultural, social and support services.
In the latest feedback survey, 95% of parents and carers said their child read more because of Doorstep Library visits, 95% said their child or children’s reading ability had improved, and 91% said that reading had become an increasing part of family life.