The goal of the United Way Reading Oasis is to give every child the opportunity to love reading. We believe this will positively affect children's learning ability and potential throughout school and beyond.
Reading for pleasure, even for just 15 minutes per day, has been proven to improve general learning levels through vocabulary acquisition, and improved understanding of new concepts and ideas. It is with this important fact in mind, and in collaboration with primary school teachers and children, that United Way UK has designed the United Way Reading Oasis.
The United Way Reading Oasis offers a safe and inviting space within the school where children can enjoy reading. This includes specially designed furniture and access to hundreds of brand new Scholastic UK books year-round. By encouraging reading for pleasure, it also reinforces the importance of reading outside of school and helps children to make it a habit at home.
In order to ensure that reading for pleasure goes beyond the school, each child in the United Way Reading Oasis programme will also receive a book of their own to take home, parents and carers will receive regular communications with tips on reading with their children, and nursery age children will receive one free book every month of the nursery school year through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.
Towards this ambition, we intend for every primary school in the UK to have a dedicated space for children to read for pleasure by 2025.
