First Minister's Reading Challenge

Developing a love of reading in childhood can have a huge impact on educational attainment and future wellbeing. The challenge encourages classes, communities and libraries to:

• Create and embed a reading culture
• Build relationships around reading
• Celebrate reading journeys
• Showcase the great work they are doing to encourage reading

Register your organisation to take part and access your free resources by visiting the First Minister’s Reading Challenge website(this will open in a new window).

See what your class can achieve with the First Minister's Reading Challenge(this will open in a new window). 

Resource library

There's lots of support available to help classes build a reading culture. We've developed a library of learning resources, support materials, adaptable presentations and videos(this will open in a new window), and we also showcase best practice case studies on our blog to inspire your reading journey.

New for 2019, we've worked with young people across Scotland to develop the Bookzilla app(this will open in a new window), a free new app designed to help young people track their reading, share recomendations and set their own reading challenges.

Funding opportunities

Registered groups can apply to our Workshops Fund for grants up to £500 to support and enhance their Reading Challenge. This funding can be used to invite authors, illustrators, poets, storytellers or creative practitioners in to their class, library or community group to inspire them on their reading journey.

Key dates

We are delivering CLPL webinars(this will open in a new window) online via Microsoft Teams, and are open for fully-funded requests for in-person training sessions in your area. See the full list of dates and register to attend on the First Minister's Reading Challege website.

Celebration event

Through the First Minister's Reading Challenge we have seen so much inspiring practice from organisations across Scotland. We will highlight the classes, libraries and community groups who have found creative and exciting ways to encourage children to develop a love of reading at our annual Celebration Event, which will take place in June 2023.