Talking Early Years: In Conversation with Diana Gerald

Book Trust

Join June O’Sullivan in discussion with the Book Trust’s CEO, Diana Gerald who helps transform lives by getting children and families reading.

With a deep understanding of the role that education plays in creating opportunity, which is at the heart of BookTrust's work, Diana talks about how she got the best job in the world and how challenging it can be to get children to read, despite the golden age and the rich diversity of books available. 

They discuss the importance of why parents should be encouraged to read with their children daily (despite the reality of many varied lives and work patterns) and how Early Years settings can be utilised to get books back into the home. 

The discussion also focuses on how the number of people who come to work in the Early Years have never been taught how to read a story and asks should there be more guidance? Whilst the assumption may be that everyone is an instinctive storyteller - that’s not always the case… especially when storytelling to a group or storytelling to an individual. However, according to Diana there is no right way – it’s about what you do that really matters… Let us know what you think.