Why wide reading matters
And how to encourage kids to do it
What is wide reading?
In episode 204 of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast, Megan Daley and Allison Tait took a deep dive into the concept of wide reading discussing its place in the development of a child’s love of literature as well as how wide reading feeds into developing writing skills.
At it’s heart, it’s simply ensuring that a young reader has access to, and engages with, a broad range of texts, rather than sticking to one type of story over and over.
“I like to compare a balanced literary diet to a balanced food diet and ask children what might happen if they decided to eat only pineapple for the rest of their life,” says Megan. “As much as they may love pineapple, it wouldn’t be healthy because we need to eat a range of foods from the various food groups to grow healthy and strong. And so it is with reading.
“We might think we will enjoy living on a diet of adventure novels, but eventually our brain will cry out for something more, something different. Like our body, our brain needs variety in order to grow.”
Why does it matter?
Wide reading is the best way to improve literacy skills – including spelling, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and expression. It also helps develop critical thinking skills, empathy and perspective, along with a young person’s writing voice and style.
“Megan and I talk about this one on the podcast a lot and it comes down to one simple formula – Words In = Words Out,” says Allison. “The more you read, the larger the vocabulary you have at your disposal, the more general knowledge you have, the more you can draw on ideas and syntax and narrative structure and facts learned from non-fiction.
“You’ll often hear writers say that the best thing you can do for your writing is to read – and they all say that for good reason. It’s true. But it’s not just reading – it’s wide reading. Different kinds of texts, different experiences, different kinds of ideas.”
And it needs to start young. Yes, let kids read and reread the books they love over and over, but keep encouraging them to try different things.
How do you encourage it?
A great place to begin is with a reading challenge. Your reading challenge could be as big and organised as participating in your state’s Premier’s Reading Challenge, or the MS Readathon or the Chapters For Change Readathon, which begins on 1 July!
Or it can be as simple as downloading our printable Reading Goals Card or YKNR Reading Bingo Card and starting right now.
The key is to start and to ensure that your child is ticking off a range of different types of stories – and remember that wide reading is not just about different genres, it’s also about different formats (think audio books, podcasts, digital or ebooks, print books and platforms such as Storybox Library).
And it’s never too early to begin.
If you get a child used to reading lots of different types of stories from a young age, it becomes part of their journey as readers.
YKNR is here to help
There is no doubt that it takes a village to raise a reader, which is one reason that we opened the doors to the Your Kid’s Next Read community nine years ago (yes, we just under-celebrated another anniversary…). If you are wondering how best to move your young reader out of a well-worn reading rut, ask them what it is they like about THAT particular type of story – and then head to the YKNR community to ask for suggestions that hit similar notes but in a different genre.
But, as announced on 24 May 2025 at Sydney Writers’ Festival, from March 2026, we’ll also be presenting, in partnership with Affirm Press, the Your Next Read junior fiction series to make it easier to create a wide-reading experience for young readers.
Across two reading age groups – Silver for readers 5-8 and Gold for readers 7-9) – the Your Next Read series will feature some of our favourite Australian authors and illustrators across a smorgasbord of stories, with something for every reader.
You can read the official media release about the Your Next Read series here, and you can see some photos from the event (and watch the Postcard Parade!) here.
We’re looking forward to sharing more information as we get closer to launch!
UPDATES FROM TEAM YKNR
We brought the Girl Group to Sydney Writers’ Festival, and left our session with full hearts and gold feathers all over the stage – thank you to everyone who came along!
HELLO FROM MEGAN DALEY
Megan is an award-winning teacher-librarian working in Brisbane, the author of Raising Readers: How to nurture a child’s love of books, and co-host of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast. Her debut picture book THE BEEHIVE is out now! More about Megan here.
What a month! Canberra, Sydney, kick off for netball season and a massive musical theatre event which has consumed time in a way I had not quite anticipated! We are definitely an ‘Arts’ family rather than a ‘Sporting’ family (and of course a bit of both is important) but in my head Arts meant less Saturday sport and early morning trainings. Turns out that choir, theatre and orchestras take potentially more time than sports trainings and often start earlier in the morning, with performance into the evening! Anyway, the Year 8 musical production came to a finale over the weekend and what a finale it was. Worth every second (I think).
Shout out of awesomeness to the committee behind the TLPLC conference in Canberra, ‘Non Fiction in the Digital Age’ – one of the best school library conferences I have been to in some time and it was an honour to present alongside some amazing school library staff. Likewise, Sydney Writers Festival blew my little library mind with it’s sheer size and next-level programming. Nathan Luff programmed a fabulous line up of kidlit creatives, including Allison Tait, Allison Rushby and I!
MEGAN’S BOOKMARK REVIEW
Bookmark this one for your YA readers.
‘The Foal in the Wire’ by Robbie Coburn
Robbie Coburn’s The Foal in the Wire is a breathtaking verse novel that sinks its teeth into grief, mental illness, and the hard edges of rural life. A YA verse novel with sparse and lyrical poetry, this is a book that will linger long after the final page, especially for readers who have known loss, and the healing qualities of horses.
Sam, a teenage boy weighed down by the death of his older brother and the emotional absence of his father—a horse trainer—moves through his days like a ghost. School is a blur, home is a place of sadness and isolation, and farm life now feels like a trap. But everything shifts the day he finds a foal caught in barbed wire at the far edge of their property. In the process of rescuing and rehabilitating the injured animal, Sam finds an unexpected lifeline—not just through the horse, but also in Julia, the girl from the neighbouring farm, who carries her own scars.
This is YA for older readers—gritty, emotionally complex, and unafraid to explore tough topics with unflinching honesty. At 14 or 15, this is a book I would have adored in the same way I adored the work of Sonya Hartnett and John Marsden. Highly recommended!
HELLO FROM ALLISON RUSHBY
The award-winning, bestselling author of many, many books for children and adults, Allison Rushby’s novels are firm favourites in the Your Kid’s Next Read community. Her latest illustrated junior fiction series, The Wish Sisters, is fast gaining fans. More about Allison R here.
OUT OF OFFICE – Allison R is currently out of office being insufferable as she enjoys a Euro Summer in London, Croatia and Italy. Apparently the below can somehow be creatively classed as ‘research’.
HELLO FROM ALLISON TAIT
Writing as A. L. Tait, Allison is the internationally published, bestselling author of three middle-grade series: The Mapmaker Chronicles, The Ateban Cipher and the Maven & Reeve Mysteries. She is an in-demand speaker, a writing teacher for kids and adults, and co-host of the YKNR podcast. Her latest novels include THE FIRST SUMMER OF CALLIE McGEE and the brand-new WILLOW BRIGHT’S SECRET PLOT. More about Allison here.
It’s another huge month here at Chez Tait (which is far too glam-sounding for the reality of my life…). With ‘Danger Road’ out on 1 July, I’m thinking about how to get the word out – so I’m starting here by letting you know that pre-orders are officially open at your favourite online bookseller or order through your favourite local bookshop.
Early reviews are starting to come in, and Books + Publishing described ‘Danger Road’ as ‘a compelling standalone mystery about a cold case, small-town secrets, and the difficulties surrounding sibling dynamics.’ Compelling. I’ll take that!
This is me at SWF, with my publisher, Laura Sieveking from Scholastic Australia, holding the one and only print copy of the book.
It’s always SUCH an incredible feeling to have the actual book in your hands for the first time. But there is no rest for the writer, so am I also editing my next middle-grade novel – more details about that soon – and dreaming up new stories (my absolute favourite bit). I’ll be putting the sparkly top away for a while…
FRIDAY FIRST CHAPTERS
Have you met the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast’s Friday First Chapters episodes?
Our infrequent series has been fairly frequent of late! Here are some episodes you may have missed!
#FFC #8 Kitty Black reads ‘Everglade: Rise of The Witch’ (MG)
#FFC #7: Jessica Townsend reads ‘Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow’ (Nevermoor #4, MG)
#FFC #6: A. L. Tait reads ‘Willow Bright’s Secret Plot’ (MG)
And stand by for new FFC episodes from Kate Gordon and Pip Smith, coming soon!
JUNE BOOKMAIL WINNER
Each month, we give away a prize pack consisting of some of the brilliant bookmail sent to us for the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast. One winner** is chosen from our full subscriber list by random draw and announced here!
There are SIX books in the JUNE prize pack.
The JUNE bookmail giveaway winner is … brownhr (Qld).
Congrats! We’ll be in touch by email.
Want a chance to win next month? All you have to do is subscribe.
Subscribed
Thanks for your support and encouragement for Your Next Read!
Allison T, Allison R and Megan
**Australian mailing addresses only. Prize consists of one copy of each book pictured, sent as a pack to the winner by Australia Post. Winner will be contacted by email and prize must be claimed within 14 days or a redraw will take place. You must be subscribed to the YKNR newsletter by midnight (AEDST) the night before publication each month to be eligible to win. No correspondence will be entered into.