A lot of support is given to children as they develop the early skills and habits of reading. Bookstart stimulates an early active engagement with books and with libraries. Parents do most of the early work to encourage the reading processes with additional support being available through a range of agencies. This was given extra boosts via Birmingham's 'Leading to Reading' and 'Year of Reading' campaigns, and via the activities to give 0-3 year olds a flying start. Underpinning developments in day nurseries, voluntary sector groups, hostels, health centres etc. has been the stability of the access to reading through libraries. Recently this has been given a new push through new stock, bright reading areas and a commitment to bring new families into regular library use. There is still work to be done to ensure an increased sense of a coherent whole city layer of service rather than disjointed activities. At the same time, however, Birmingham's children are entering school better prepared as readers and writers than ever before. This is being built on by schools, at all stages, to produce young adults who have had massive exposure to books and who can appreciate well written material. Further stimulation of reading and writing is being supported by improvements to school libraries; by creating opportunities to regularly flood classrooms and other venues with large numbers of high quality books; by young people and businesses making and using their own big books; by using digital cameras and ICT for nursery children to produce simple books to share with their parents. There are strong connections between families that have a variety of reading and writing materials in the home and families where children do relatively well at school; between young people's reading and writing for fun at home, or in community groups, and their overall ability levels across a broad range of subjects at school. Genuine interest in reading and writing are far from being the only factors for success but they are quite strong ones. Reading for fun and for specific purposes goes hand in hand with the practising of specific skills to develop consistent and competent readers.		Visit libraries during holiday times and you will come across reading games and challenges. For two weeks each year, Birmingham is the focal point of Young Readers UK a celebration of books and reading, with a chance for young people to meet authors, illustrators and storytellers. Writers also visit youth venues and childrens homes; and are regular visitors to schools. Joint funding from the Core Skills Development Partnership enables children aged 8-11 to use the internet to access stories and poems, write reviews and link to authors. Libraries across Birmingham have established a range of teenage reading groups and are now better resourced with material geared to their teenage target group. Library use by 16 25 year olds has increased from 13,000 (in 1996) to more than 26,000 (in 2000). All of these activities add up to an increased momentum behind stimulating and sustaining active young readers who will carry forward their love of books with them into adult and family life. Behind this, a smaller and slower wave is building up that aims to similarly turn increasing numbers of young people onto writing in their own time. All of these developments add momentum to the partners' commitments to make Birmingham into a self-sustaining literate (and numerate) city.