The Reading Badge of Slovenia concept was founded in the early 1960s as a means of tackling the deficiency of literature teaching in primary schools. Having read a certain number of books, children were awarded a badge, and collecting badges was very popular with children in the late 1950s. The badges represented acclaimed Slovene poets and writers from the regions where certain badges were awarded.

Today's Reading Badge builds on the tradition of the original 36 reading badges but has become a modern movement for promotion of reading. The Reading Badge of Slovenia Association seeks to spread reading culture, mostly amongst the young (pre-school, primary and secondary schoolchildren). It encourages mostly voluntary and free-time reading, including the reading of fiction books, and integrates all endeavours aimed at better functional literacy of the individual and society. The Association has developed various programmes and actions that promote family reading, including The Cradle of Reading, Grandma and Grandpa Telling and especially the Preschool Reading Badge that stimulates parents to read to pre-school children and to children in the first forms of primary schools. The Reading Badge movement has spread all over Slovenia and also to neighbouring countries with Slovene-speaking children, including the children of Slovene migrant workers.

The committee of the Reading Badge of Slovenia Association monitors its development, issuing material for the motivation of young readers, preparing educational seminars, publishing educational material for mentors and organising sessions with the authors of children's literature in schools and libraries. It collaborates with experts from the field of children's literature and literary didactics and with public libraries, the Centre for Children's Literature at the Pionirska knjižnica branch of Oton Župančič Library (a Slovene section of IBBY), the Slovene Reading Association, the Slovene Writers’ Association, the Association of Book Publishers, Child magazine, and a range of book clubs, publishing houses and mass media institutions.