Learning to Read
Reading at the Library is great fun!
By the time most children start primary school, they have learned a lot about language. They have watched, listened to, and interacted with adults and other children. They have played, explored, and made discoveries at home and in childcare and preschool settings. By kindergarten most children are ready to move to the next step – mastering conventional reading and writing.
Goulburn Library offers a wide range of reading materials, programs and events, and support for developing readers.
Peer Reading
Join our fantastic Peer Reading Program to improve reading skills, boost confidence, and foster a love of reading.
Our Peer Reading Program runs on Tuesday afternoons every term. Young readers spend half an hour with a trained peer leader who acts as a mentor and motivator during a one-on-one read-aloud session.
Our Peer Reading Program is perfect for reluctant readers and young readers who need a little more support and confidence to develop their skills.
For more information and bookings, see our programs and special events.
Kids eLibrary
Access our amazing collections of Kids eBooks, eAudiobooks, eMagazines, movies, and more!
Our Kids eLibrary collections are full of suitable reading and watching materials for young readers right up to teen years, designed for education and fun all at the same time!
Browse the collections or download the apps to your mobile device:
Decodable Readers
Decodable books play an important role in phonics instruction and building confidence in young readers. They are specifically written for beginning readers as they are developing their blending and segmenting skills and their knowledge of the alphabetic code. Decodable texts support students as they practise by using a continuous meaningful text.
Decodable texts contain a very large percentage of words that incorporate the letter-sound relationships that students have been taught. They encourage children to sound out words using decoding strategies rather than guessing from pictures or predicting from other cues. They can be introduced once beginning readers have learned some simple grapheme–phoneme correspondences and can blend from left to right.
Leapfrog Readers
The Leapfrog collection contains books for children who are learning to read. The books are colour coded to match the book with the child's reading ability:
- Green books - are for the beginner reader. This level includes books that are for parents to share with their children to engage them in reading, as well as simple texts that early readers can attempt to read themselves.
- Yellow books - are for the developing reader. These stories have an increase in sentence length and vocabulary.
- Blue books - are aimed at confident readers. These books are for children who are starting to read on their own, but may still require assistance.
- Red books - are for newly independent readers. They generally have short chapters, multiple stories and engage the reader with more complex plots.
Story Box Library
Designed especially for young people right through to upper primary years, Story Box Library showcases some of the very best children's books available, read by your favourite storytellers, along with related activity packs, short videos, and much more!