Throughout January we have been reviewing lots of literacy based products and services on the blog. Reading Chest is proving to be one of our favourites!
Reading Chest is a reading book subscription service. This fits in perfectly with busy lifestyles and supplements school reading books perfectly.
How Does It Work?
- You select which reading level band your child is on. If you don’t know, they have a guide with suggested age ranges and example pages to help making the right choice: (see here if you need the guide)
- Select which reading scheme you would like. This can be left open to all schemes, or you can choose to exclude just one scheme. I just excluded one – the one Mr Z gets from school anyway, to avoid getting books that he would have already read.
- If you change your mind about which book bands or which reading schemes you want, you can log in and change that at any time
- After signing up, you will receive your first selection with 4 (or 6 for gold package) books, a book bag and a sticker reward chart.
- Once you have finished books, you send them back in the prepaid envelope provided (up to 3 at a time) and Reading Chest will swap them for new books and send them back to you straight away.
- The amount of swaps you can have depends which package you are on (see them all here). On Silver or Gold plans you can have multiple reading lists, so you can use the same subscription for siblings on different reading bands.
What Did We Think?
Reading Chest is working really well for us. Mr Z’s school sends him a couple of reading books per week, but that doesn’t seem like enough when I want to practise reading with him every night and he will get bored reading the same books twice! Sending the books back for swaps is no effort at all as the envelope fits in the post box, and luckily we pass one every day on the way to school so it couldn’t really be any easier.
Mr Z likes having a new selection to choose from all the time and having a mixture of different schemes helps to keep things more interesting, especially as some are fiction and some are non fiction. Mr Z has enjoyed the non fiction reading books as he doesn’t tend to get those from school. He also really likes putting a sticker on his chart for every book he reads.
How Did Reading Chest Help With Reading?
I feel its definitely helped Mr Z’s confidence in reading. Reading scheme books in his band are more manageable for Mr Z to read than just any story book from home, as they are pitched at the right level, so it’s better for him to have these and be able to read them without as much help so that he grows in confidence. As he doesn’t get so many books from school, having the extra books from Reading Chest gives us more opportunities to practise reading and keeps things interesting. I have moved Mr Z up a reading band since we started with Reading Chest and I feel more reassured about how his reading is coming along.
Discount code PLAY14 will give new members £5 off their first month.
Have you tried Reading Chest? Let me know your experiences, or how your little ones are getting along with their reading.
Want to see our other Literacy posts and reviews? Follow us!
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
Ooo i like the idea of a subscription service, the thrill of something coming through the post must really add to the joy of it for little ones!
No, as hadn’t heard of this Company / service. Thanks for the information. Little one is enjoying stories and books. Pretends he can read :- mimics Mum, Dad, Gran etc. Keen to encourage a love and interein books for the family. So thanks once again for the information etc.
We’re testing this out at the moment, and so far have been very impressed. 6yo is enjoying the familiarity of books like school has and also loves it that she can read them, so I’ve obviously got the right level for her at the moment.
This sounds fab, especially for getting some new books to read.
This is such a great idea, and a great way to find new books! Thanks for linking up with #TriedTested
We’re enjoying our first books at the moment, Monkey has really taken to them
Sounds like a really great idea! 🙂
What a great idea – I hate going to the library as we never make it back to return the books and always have a fine so this is great alternative. #Tried&tested
I really love that the subscription is carefully targeted to your child’s current reading level and it makes perfect sense to be able to exclude the scheme you know they are reading at school. The fact this broadens their reading experiences really appeals (especially if their school scheme focusses on a very phonic based scheme which lacks “real” texts)
Thanks for linking up this week 🙂
#TriedTested
Sounds like a great idea – no lugging tons of books across town to the library!
Oh this sounds really useful!
Sounds like a great idea, my kids are all bookworms, nice to be able to change what they are reading more frequently #TriedandTested
This looks like a great idea, good for little ones to encourage reading.
I have one of these to review and so far we love it. I can’t wait to get the review up. Everyone I’ve seen who has one is really enjoying it! We’ve just done our first swap and the envelope is sitting ready for Eldest to open up later on!
Great idea!
We have loads of books but we seem to have read them over and over again!