National Share-a-Story Month 2026 – Once Upon a Storytime
National Share-a-Story Month 2026 – Once Upon a Storytime
Share your love of stories by reading aloud!
This year as part of our pledge to The National Year of Reading we have chosen reading aloud as the focus of National Share-a-Story month. Once Upon a Storytime invites you to celebrate the way that reading aloud and sharing a story with others creates a special magic of its own.
Characters come to life with gestures and voices, the action has pace and atmosphere and best of all the reader and the audience are on the journey together.
Meet the Queen with Sophie and the BFG, explore the woods with the Gruffalo, enjoy tea with the hungry Tiger and make friends with Tracey Beaker.
At the Federation, we have been enthusiastically reading aloud to generations of children since our foundation nearly sixty years ago. Here is a typical anecdote.
Once upon a time I had the pleasure of sharing some stories with a class of five years olds at a local village school for World Book Day. I opened Helen Cooper’s lovely picture book ‘Pumpkin Soup’ and a little boy who I had noticed fidgeting near the back declared loudly, ‘I know this book”. I asked him to come and read it with me…but no I wasn’t needed; to the surprise of his teacher and delight of his friends, this lad told the story, on his own, off by heart and word perfect, with inflection and humour, to all his classmates. It was a magical moment for us all.
Our members know that reading aloud establishes a fundamental connection between reader and listener. Now scientific research is catching up.
Professor Sam Wass is a neuroscientist and director of the Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth at the University of East London. His research has demonstrated that when you read aloud to babies their breathing, heartbeat and brainwaves all synchronise with yours and so reading aloud promotes healthy brain development. “Babies’ brains are messy,” he says. “Their brain rhythms are naturally just all over the shop. Reading gives us increased regularity and predictability … [and] …helps a baby’s rhythms to become more stable.”¹
Despite all the observable benefits of reading aloud, so often we stop reading to children once they are able to read to themselves. Yet other experiments are showing that it can offer a path back to enjoyment of reading even among the disaffected. A book club trial for disengaged readers in Year 8² found that 85% of participants found listening to stories or story extracts either enjoyable or ‘ok’. Meanwhile, the Teachers as Readers research recommends reading aloud as a key strategy for promoting enjoyment of reading.³
Experience and research are telling us the same thing. The world of books is brimming with adventures ready and waiting to be shared. More and more wonderful titles are published each year: check out our booklist if you need inspiration.
This month, embrace the enchantment of Once Upon a Storytime. Whatever the age of the children you come across, Go All In and read to them – aloud!
Louisa Farrow (current NSSM coordinator and member of Birmingham Children’s Book Group) and Louise Stothard (former NSSM coordinator and member of Northamptonshire Children’s Book Group)
² https://www.farshore.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2025/04/Social-Reading-Spaces-2025.pdf
