As the National Year of Reading approaches, The Reading Agency (TRA) is celebrating five years of inspiring more people to read more.

The Reading Agency was founded as a charity in 2002 by merging three smaller agencies. It has grown very rapidly and is revenue funded by the Arts Council. In its first five years TRA has developed a series of experimental projects into major national reading programmes and partnerships. Just two examples are:

• The Summer Reading Challenge, which now reaches 650,000 children a year, is run throughout the library network and inspires children to read three million books over the summer holidays. Research shows it improves their reading range, confidence and enjoyment.
• The Chatterbooks network of reading groups for four to eleven year olds, which started in three trailblazing library authorities in 2001. It now runs in 160 authorities, and involves 6,000 children.

Other work will be built on and developed in the 2008 National Year of Reading, which The Reading Agency is helping to run with the National Literacy Trust. This includes partnerships with publishers, the Richard & Judy Book Club, Orange, BBC Learning and BBC Radio. Plus family reading programmes in prisons, work to stimulate the formation of new reading groups and to transform the reading experience teenagers get in libraries.