Our stories

The day before the ACT went into lockdown, our team sat down with dad Fred* to complete a Storytime recording for his youngest child.

Fred is working to improve his literacy skills, so our team practised the book with him many times and recorded each page separately. He was determined to create this gift for his children and persisted with patience throughout the entire process.

The plan had been to then complete a second story for Fred’s two eldest children; however, the lockdown persisted, so our team called their mother, Mavis* and asked if she’d like to receive the book for the youngest child first.

She explained the children were missing their dad very much and that anything would be amazing.

After the family received Fred’s story and recording, Mavis emailed to say, “The book is now his [the youngest child’s] favourite!”.

Mum Mavis emailed to say, “The book is now his [the youngest child’s] favourite!”.

Four long months passed, and eventually, our team was able to go back inside and complete Storytime recordings once again.

When our team sat down with Fred, they were astonished to find his literacy skills had noticeably improved!

He said he was making more of an effort to read things that were around him, whether it was on a wall or a piece of paper, or an email.

It was clearly making an impact, and we were so pleased to see that just starting the Storytime process had benefited not only Fred’s children but him as well.

Our team set about repeating the process of practising the story and recording page by page, but this time they finished in half the time.

Fred thanked our team and shared a lovely story of a call he received from Mavis during the lockdown.

She’d told him that when the children would like to go to bed each night, they ask for her phone (for the recording) and the book.

He told us how much it meant to him to hear that all three of his children would then go into their bedroom together and listen to him read to them before falling asleep together.