Reading Differences

I picked up an interesting leaflet last week, all about the The Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) project Reading Differences. The leaflet states:

"Reading different books – stories, poems, picture books and traditional tales set in different cultural contexts – opens windows on to other worlds, showing how other children grow up, get along with family and friends and cope with everyday life and extraordinary events"

The focus is on introducing children and young people to a broader range of literature from around the world, I think a lot of the ideas are relevant to any type of reading, and are all really just methods for talking about what is being read. The leaflet sets out four ideas to think about:

• Researching the background of the book, looking up maps is a good place to start, but anything that puts the book in a wider context would be good.
• Interpreting pictures, maps and pictures develop the atmosphere of the book and can be good places to explore the geographical and historical settings.
• Reading aloud, alerting reading partners to different voices, will bring the stories to life.
• Draw on knowledge of similar stories, some of the exotic stories may not be quite so different to those in modern soap operas.

Finally, there are some recommended books that look great:

• A World of Poetry
• Sheep Don't Go to School: Mad and Magical Children's Poetry of Eastern Europe
• Eye of the Wolf
• One Thousand and One Arabian Nights (Oxford Story Collections)
• East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon

Lots more books are listed on Reading Differences annotated book list.