The partnership will see Yoto players and cards donated to 85 primary schools that are taking part in the Puffin World of Stories initiative. 

Yoto, the kids’ audio platform behind the award-winning Yoto Player, has announced a partnership with Puffin, leading children’s publisher and part of Penguin Random House UK. Yoto will support the Puffin World of Stories initiative, which is run in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, by donating 90 Yoto Players, card cases and card sets to primary schools across the country.

Ben Drury, CEO and co-founder of Yoto commented: “We’re really pleased to be supporting this initiative with Puffin, it’s a wonderful opportunity to bring a world of audio to children through schools – helping inspire creativity and imagination.”

Puffin World of Stories inspires children to discover a love of reading by giving primary schools in disadvantaged communities the tools they need to reinvigorate their libraries and encourage reading for pleasure, through free books and resources.

Tom Austin, head of brand and social at Penguin Random House Children’s, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Yoto to help children discover the magic of stories. The players provide easier accessibility to stories for those children with lower literacy levels and other barriers to accessing resources”

2021 is the third year of the initiative, and adds another 85 schools to the programme. Since its launch, the initiative has gifted 41,700 brand new Puffin books (300 per school) and the initiative in 2021 adds a further 25,500 books to this total. To date, Puffin World of Stories has also made almost 5,000 audiobooks available to schools, and is making a further 2,550 available this year.

The new partnership with Yoto adds further to this figure, enabling a new and portable way for children to enjoy audiobooks as part of their World of Stories reading space. Recent research from the National Literacy Trust found that the gap in reading enjoyment between boys and girls has widened significantly over lockdown, and that audiobooks are an effective way to re-engage boys in stories.

Fiona Evans, director of school programmes at the National Literacy Trust said: “Our research on audiobooks found that a third of young people felt better listening to audiobooks during the first lockdown. Audiobooks improve children’s enjoyment of reading and support their wellbeing, so we are delighted that more children in the schools we work with will have the chance to listen to their favourite stories.”

The Yoto Player is controlled using physical cards that are inserted into the Player which plays audio content. Additionally, Yoto’s audio cards have the ability to play content through the app by simply tapping the card to the back of a compatible smartphone. The free-to-download Yoto smartphone app also contains a selection of free content available to all, and allows families to play their library of audio through other Bluetooth speakers.

For more information please visit www.yotoplay.com.