Reading Matters New Website

We are really pleased to have a new website that really promotes and supports all Reading Matters activities. With details of our key services (Reading Mentors, Reading Leaders, Reading Families and Reading Teams) and downloadable resources including Fun Sheets, Case Studies, Research and Information Packs.

Take a look at www.readingmatters.org.uk, and get involved:

• Leave a comment on the blog
• See the latest updates from our Facebook page, please like us! 
• Sign up for the new Email Bulletin 
• Check out the Events Calendar

This blog has been incorporated into the new website, so in future posts will be added there. You may want to update any subscriptions you have set up.

Picture This! Illustrating Children’s Books at Gallery Oldham

I have just read about the rather wonderful sounding Picture This! Illustrating Children’s Books show at Gallery Oldham on the equally wonderful blog by Lynne Chapman. 


It sounds great, with illustrations from children’s books family activities. It includes some big names too: Shirley Hughes, Anthony Browne, Jez Alborough and Helen Stephens. 

Lynnes' doing a big family event on Saturday 28 January and the exhibition is on to 11 March, so lots of time to make the trip!

Free to download: How to Choose Children’s Books

I just got a copy of the free to download: How to Choose Children’s Books by Aaron Mead.

It is really comprehensive, and just a little over-whelming!

It contains

• Practical tips on picking great books for kids of all ages—infant through young adult.
• Guidance on what makes books attractive and developmentally valuable for children.
• Analysis of themes, illustrations, stories, and the use of humor in children’s books.
• Philosophical reflections on the role of children’s books in the development of moral character.
• A comprehensive list of online resources for finding excellent children’s literature, including book lists, sources of professional book reviews, and children’s literature blogs.

A key message for me, is that just because a book looks attractive to an adult doesn't mean it is going to be right for a young person. 

It's an eBook so full of links to further reviews and resources. I think our Reading Mentors, families and other people working one-to-one with young people will find it very interesting.

New Baby - Little Parachutes

My start with Reading Matters was two weeks after the birth of my first daughter, Rose, see my very first blog post. Well three years later, a new baby is on the way:

It is exciting times, I may not be to coherent around the end of April!

To prepare Rose for becoming a big sister I have been looking for reading recommendations. The Little Parachutes website, in conjunction with the local library, has proved really useful. Little Parachutes provides suggestions for 'picture books to help with life's challenges' such as a new baby. I can really recommend The Perfect Baby by Tony Bradman and Holly Swain.


With other subjects including Hospitals/Operations, Fear of the Dark, Moving House, Starting School and Healthy Eating it is great for exploring issues with children via reading.

Bookstart Book Crawl

This weekend, I was at Sheffield Children's Library. My daughter, Rose, completed her Bookstart Book Crawl. Part of the Summer Reading Challenge. Catching up with Alexis the Librarian it sounds like the Summer Reading Challenge Volunteers are doing a great job.

Alexis and Rose!

Summer Reading Challenge 2011: Circus Stars

I finally got my daughter signed up for the Summer Reading Challenge. It's been running for a few weeks now through the summer holidays. We really do need to get reading!

Like last year I trained some young reading volunteers to work in libraries across Sheffield. And reports are they are really making a difference to the success of this year's Summer Reading Challenge.

This year's theme is Circus Stars. The website has some nice games, opportunities to chat and author videos, including my new friend Andy Stanton.

Get reading and get some fancy stickers!

Peace in the Park Festival Self Help Africa Reading Aloud World Record Attempt

Via the Reading Zone Website, I learnt about a great event at my favourite local festival.

One of the chosen causes at the Peace in the Park Festival on 4 June 2011 in Sheffield is Self Help Africa. At the festival they are going to try and break the World Record for the most adults reading aloud to children.

They will be reading Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book led by story-teller Shona Leigh, and will be attended by adjudicators acting on behalf of the Guinness Book of Records.

I go to the festival most years, it is always great fun. This year sounds especially good!

Crystal Peaks Library | World Book Day | Save Our Libraries

An important community event in aid of World Book Day (3 March 2011) is taking place in Crystal Peaks Library to help promote libraries in a bid to 'Save our libraries'.

A full day of events taking place for adults and children, including readings from famous authors and a visit from The Lord Mayor of Sheffield.

Michelin Starred TV Chef and author Tessa Bramley talks about her books and books that have influenced her life.

Award winning play write and novelist Elizabeth Baines, reads from her books and talks about how libraries played a role in her life.

Local author Martyn Johnson reads from his book "What's tha up to, memoirs of an Attercliffe Bobby" and talks about his involvement in the making of the book Black Diamonds.

Local poet Rob Hindle reads from his books and talks.

Local Community theatre group read from children's books and plays.

Workshop on reading to your children.

I am not going to make it, I'll be at the FOOTSEY Expo, but I hope some Reading Matters representatives will be there.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes - Guinness World Record attempt

On 1 March 10.30-11.15, across the country people will be coming together to break the record for the largest number of children, parents and carers performing ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’.

In Sheffield where I live, people are assembling in the Peace Gardens in Sheffield City Centre, part of the ESCAL project.

It is happening nationally as part of this years Chatterbox Challenge.

My daughter, Rose, will be there. Unfortunately I won't be. Instead I'll be meeting Reading Matters new Young Embedded Advisor in partnership with Chantry YMCA in Rotherham. It's a pretty exciting project too, but maybe not quite as much fun as a mass 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'!

Reading, Communicating, Mentoring

This week I was at the northern launch of the National Year of Communication - Hello, it was a different audience than I am used to, lots of Speech and Language Therapists and people from Early Years settings such as Children's Centres. There are some good resources on the Hello website if you want more information.

It reminded me about how reading is just once facet of communication, but also what a difference the reading partnerships we help facilitate can make to all aspects of children's lives, a sample quote;

At 11 years old only a fifth of children with significant speech, language and communication needs reach the expected levels for their age in both English and Maths

Another benefit of successful reading partnerships is the supportive relationships they help build. Reading Matters have been working with the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation to really explore this aspect of the reading partnerships.Their Supporting Life's Journeys Campaign is a great way for anyone to sign up to the the cause.

Interplay Leeds Volunteer Reading Mentors Meeting 2

I said in my last post about our recent Volunteer Reading Mentors Meeting at Interplay in Leeds, I would share my short presentation. So here it is:

Reading Matters Presentation - Interplay 10-12-09

My overall message was that, despite so many changes, in schools, government and at Reading Matters, the need for us to keep on improving reading skills and changing lives is as great as ever.

In fact, the week after our meeting there was a flurry of news stories about how thousands of boys start secondary school 'barely able to read', the BBC report highlighted some of Reading Matters core areas of work. For example, in Rotherham 14% of 11-year-old boys in state schools did not reach level three in their reading tests this summer, this means they were at the level expected of a seven-year-old.

It is true that 'raw data' from the controversial SATS reading tests will not provide the full story, but headlines like these indicate there are still huge numbers of children and young people in primary and secondary schools that do not have special educational needs but still need extensive support for them to reach their full potential in life.

The next part of my presentation shows that through Reading Matters Reading Mentors, Reading Leaders and other programmes, we do reach these young people with simple, targeted and effective support. In fact in the the 2009-10 academic year we supported 3768 children and young people.

The last 12 months we have won a number of awards and accolades that back this up, including the Yorkshire Forward Creating Better Future Awards 2010 and Business Link Social Enterprise Awards 2009. But even more important to me is the feedback form the schools we work in:

“The Reading Matters scheme not only improves the reading ability of all students involved, it also creates a fantastic reading culture, promoting responsibility and maturity”. Sheffield School Co-ordinator at
Firth Park Community College.

Like all everyone to continue to meet our objectives, Reading Matters is finding new and innovative ways of working and new partners such as the Summer Reading Challenge, Special Schools and Foster Carers. Having said that, we will be drawing the line at canine support.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Request - Books with a local connection.

I was in Cromford at the weekend. I notice an advert for Derbyshire Reading Detectives. I checked it out and it's a fantastic project, plotting books with a Derbyshire connection on an online map.

When writing about Meet Me by the Steel Men, I suggested books with a local connection are great for use in reading partnerships.

I have a little list of Sheffield and Rotherham ideas, but I would love to hear some more. I have set-up a Discussion on Reading Matters Facebook Page for people to add their suggestions. Please come and join in!

Booked Up at Newfield and Crookes in the Library

Last Friday (1/10/10) , I visited my friend Louise at Newfield School. As well as giving me some top tips for future reading (Something Wickedly Weird by Chris Mould, Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson and Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley amongst others) she also reminded me about the fantastic Booked Up programme.

Booked Up is organised by the Book Trust and delivered through schools. It allows Year 7 pupils to choose a free book from a specially selected list. The whole project is mainly promoted by school librarians like Louise, but the website is well worth a look. The list of books is always great, their are some nice pages and ideas for parents and carers and interactive tools, games and competitions for participating young people.

After my Newfield visit I was off to Sheffield Town Hall for a little celebration event for the young volunteers I had trained as part of the Summer Reading Challenge. I'll give a bit more info and some images when I get them through. Safe-to-say it was a splendid evening the volunteers were all quietly brilliant and I met the Lord Mayor too. The volunteers all got free tickets to The Crookes gig that was happening in the Library that evening. I heard the band on 6Music the next day - a very literary bunch they sounded too. I didn't go to the gig, but I did get a flyer!


Gigs in libraries - I love it!

More World Cup 2010 Reading

My previous post about World Cup 2010 Reading has been quite popular. So I have a couple more ideas [thanks to Louise].

• Activity Village Word Cup for Kids have a whole host of fun activities, I particularly like the Printables page with bookmarks, trading cards
• Also on Activity Village, Outline Maps perfect for finding out (as Louise says, no need for tracing paper)!
• Raintree World Cup Fever has lots of books to buy and a online quiz
• Skills Workshop have a bunch of FIFA World Cup 2010 activities including lots of reading activities
• iChild have nice drawing and craft based activities
• Love Reading 4 Kids have a nice list of books on a World Cup Theme
• Teacher Planet have a nice list of links (like this one) with even more World Cup activities

Have fun, remember to practice your penalties!

World Cup 2010 Reading

This week I trained more than 40 students from Meadowhead School in Sheffield to be Reading Leaders. During the training we discussed using events such as the imminent World Cup to engage readers. I've done some research and found a wonderful collection of reading materials on this subject:

• Literacy Trust World Cup Resources - Brilliant resources to download and use
• Free Reads from Tom Palmer - Football Stories
  
• Football Foundation Reading The Game Premier League Reading Stars
  
• Reading For Life - Love Football Love Reading - Ten Top Tips for parents on using the World Cup to encourage children to read
• 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Fact File
• Winning Moves Top Trumps Specials - Fifa World Cup
• Read the Game with Andersen - Order three football books from Andersen Press and receive a free world cup wall chart

Guardian List - The best children's books ever

There is a nice set of articles on the Guardian website, making an attempt to list The best children's books ever. Quite a task.

I do love a list, I think this is quite a male attribute, but stand to be corrected. I also love the sort of responses they provoke. People take it very personally when their favourite is neglected.

There is a nice accompanying article which quotes Pie Corbett:
"This isn't just an economic thing – it's across the whole of society. You get a lot of children coming from very privileged backgrounds who've spent a lot of time in front of the TV and not enough time with a good book. The TV does the imagining for you – and it doesn't care whether you're listening or not."
Pie Corbett's approach is very popular at the moment, I have written before about his Booktalk scheme on this blog.

I would add that we should not restrict ourselves to fiction books (Literature!). One commenter suggests the local paper, what a great idea. I get a bit nervous about strict age bands for books. I guess it is inevitable, but if you are a great reader at 11 some of the books on the 12+ list would be perfect and similarly if you are a little less experienced 12 year old reader, you shouldn't feel be embarrassed to try the books listed here for 8-12 year olds.

For what it is worth I am devastated that Holes by Louis Sachar is not included.

Care2Read - Sheffield Foster Carers

Yesterday I attended the last day of a Reading Matters Care2Read training course for Sheffield Foster Carers. It is the first time we have run the course with the Sheffield Fostering Service, and it was just great.

The eye-opener for me was the numbers of children the foster carers look after and the range of ages. Of the 12 carers I met, on average they look after nearly four children each, with ages from 9 months up to 16 and older.

I have one 18 month old daughter who is quite enough of a handful, and clearly dealing with foster children can will be even more complicated.

As well as looking after the children, the foster cares have a big package of training and development to handle too. I hope Reading Matters can play a part in this in the future, obviously without adding to workloads.

The foster carers on the course were full of ideas and inspiration. They will get an accreditation from the course, but I think the main outcome was some reassurance that they are already doing so much to help the children with their reading and confidence. Building activities into your daily routine in an informal way (reading road-signs, recipes, shopping lists or whatever) is just as much benefit as a big structured 'educational plan'.

Another Care2Read training course for Sheffield Foster Carers starts today I hope this will go as well as the first.

A week and a day

So Thursday was World Book Day and, perhaps as a result, my week has been incredibly busy with all manner of reading based activity:

• I have been back to Sheffield University where I was a student, training current students to be reading mentors in Sheffield primary schools. They will be helping children be Book Busters; an ESCAL (Every Sheffield Child Articulate and Literate) project in conjunction with Sheffield School Library Service.
• Our new Care2Read course begun last week with a group of foster parents at the fostering service. I am always so amazed by foster carers; taking on children of different ages and backgrounds and with such different needs, often as well as their own children. They are so dedicated to the children they care for they're going to make perfect reading partners. They are also able to inspire new reading partnerships; I heard about older children reading with the younger ones. Great stuff.
• On Monday 1 March we had our regular termly meeting for reading mentors. I always enjoy catching up with people who I do not see enough of. And this time we had a great presentation from Barrie from Barrington Stoke. He completely re-affirmed my love for their range of books. He showed us how everything is so carefully prepared; the covers, the font used, the editing process with young people, paper quality and all other aspects of the publishing system. It results in a perfect range of books. Check out one of their newest ranges, the Five Lords of Pain.
  
• On the day of World Book Day, Thursday 4 March, I was training a group of primary school staff to run their own Reading Matters volunteer reading mentors project in school. It is a nice session and I always get lots of new ideas.
• World Book Day itself has some great activities as usual, for example games and resources on their website. I was in my favourite book shop, Scarthin Books, at the weekend, they had a nice display of the current batch of £1 World Book Day books.
• Finally, I am preparing for a set of training courses this week and next. Getting a bunch of new mentors up-to-speed, and a bit of a refresher for longer-term mentors next week.

It is so good to be involved with all these fantastic activities, all Reading Matters mentors and trainees are always so enthusiastic and full of ideas and inspiration for getting children reading.

Parents' Week 2009

I spotted a poster for Sheffield Parents' Week, and thought I would investigate further. I found some very useful stuff, in regards to Reading Matters and as a parent myself.

Parents' Week started today (19 October) but most of the activities and information will be useful at anytime, for example Reading Matters very own Parents and Carers as Partners.

If you are in Sheffield one of the easiest ways to get involved is the Sheffield Information Link Photo Competition, I suggest pictures of family reading sessions.

[pic credit: swan-t]