How Story Zoo Inspires a Love of Reading at Home and in School

Reading for pleasure is one of the most powerful predictors of a child’s future success. At Story Zoo, our mission is to make reading exciting, accessible, and meaningful both in the classroom and at home.

In this Q&A, co-founder and Primary School teacher Sophie Hayes, explains the thinking behind our books, how we link learning between home and school, and how Story Zoo supports busy parents in building positive reading habits.

Why We Created the Story Zoo Books

When developing the Story Zoo library, we focused first on phonics books. Our goal was to make them fully compatible with any synthetic phonics scheme, so schools could integrate them easily regardless of which programme they use. Fidelity to a phonics scheme is essential, so our books are designed to enhance and extend a school’s existing reading provision, offering children a wider range of engaging material.

Bringing Phonics to Life with Modern Imagery

Traditional school reading books often struggle to capture children’s imagination. To solve this, our designers use AI-generated imagery, carefully refined, layered, and composed to create vibrant, original illustrations. Each image is unique and thoughtfully crafted to spark curiosity and engagement, something our data shows makes a real difference in children’s reading enjoyment.

Aligning Books with Children’s Interests and the Curriculum

Beyond phonics, the Story Zoo library was designed around both curriculum needs and children’s passions. We noticed, for example, that in Years 3 and 4, many children, particularly boys, begin to lose interest in reading. To re-ignite their enthusiasm, we created books about football, cricket, basketball, and other sports that connect with their interests.

We also developed a comprehensive range of non-fiction titles aligned to the National Curriculum, covering topics such as geography, weather, and history. These are perfect as hook lessons or for engaging reluctant readers who naturally gravitate toward factual content.

To strengthen the link between knowledge and imagination, we’ve written fiction books inspired by non-fiction topics. For example, our Viking series includes both informative and story-based titles, helping children connect historical facts with narrative storytelling.

Encouraging Reading for Pleasure

Everything we do at Story Zoo centres on reading for pleasure. We want every child to discover their own love of reading, free from pressure or testing, while teachers still benefit from detailed analytics that track comprehension and progress across different reading domains.

Our platform empowers schools to create richer reading experiences, giving teachers insight and children the freedom to explore.

Building a Strong Home–School Reading Link

The connection between reading at home and reading at school is vital. Our research shows that children who read less at home often struggle to access the full curriculum in subjects like science, geography, and history. By strengthening the home-school link, we can help close that gap and improve outcomes across all subjects.

At Story Zoo, we encourage teachers to use our platform during early morning work, guided reading sessions, and small-group interventions. This consistency helps children develop positive reading habits such as logging their books, sharing opinions, analysing texts, and choosing what interests them.

Once these habits form at school, they naturally extend to home life. For families who can’t easily visit libraries or buy new books, Story Zoo delivers a digital library directly to the child, ensuring every learner, regardless of background, can access a wide range of high-quality, inclusive stories.

Exposure to diverse characters, cultures, and experiences through reading helps children build empathy, understanding, and tolerance, which are essential skills for the modern world.

How Story Zoo Supports Busy Parents

Balancing work, home life, and school commitments can be challenging. Story Zoo helps relieve that pressure by enabling children to read independently from an early age while maintaining a clear communication link between home and school.

Because Story Zoo is fully digital, children can read anywhere, anytime, whether on the way to school, during travel, or between clubs, turning spare moments into valuable reading opportunities. Parents can stay informed about their child’s progress without the added burden of paperwork or logging books manually.

Over time, children build consistent reading routines at home, which they naturally replicate at school. This creates consistency between home and classroom, ensuring a unified approach to literacy and reinforcing both academic progress and reading for pleasure.

When reading becomes second nature in both environments, children gain the confidence, comprehension, and curiosity that underpin lifelong learning.

Conclusion: Growing Readers, Bridging Worlds

At Story Zoo, we believe reading should be exciting, inclusive, and accessible for every child. By connecting the classroom with the home and supporting teachers, parents, and pupils alike, we’re helping to build a culture of reading for pleasure, one story at a time.