Prime Minister says "Reading Matters"

David Cameron reads with Divine Obijiaku: from Evening Standard Website

There is a nice article on the Evening Standard website about the Prime Minister's visit to a London school. He was checking out the Get London Reading campaign. It's a very similar model to ours here at Reading Matters; using Reading Volunteers to improve literacy.


To hammer home the point here is a quote

Reading matters for two simple reasons, he told pupils. "If we don't learn to read properly, then everything else in education is a closed book. But above and beyond that, reading is a joy and a pleasure and it is for life."

Bideford Learning Community Book Relief Training July 2011

Last week I was in Bideford, North Devon, training 30 Volunteer Reading Mentors and School co-ordinators to begin reading sessions in Bideford Primary Schools in September.

We had a wonderful couple of training days full of enthusiasm and ideas, it was an inspiration, as was the Devon landscape.

Organised by the local Book Relief charity and The Bideford Learning Community, and funded by Awards for All and The Bideford Bridge Trust, I know the programme is going to be a huge success. I don't usually make a big deal of the end of training session evaluation forms, but there are some lovely comments from these particular days:

• Excellent course, I feel very confident and very excited about becoming a Reading Mentor
• Very useful and easy to understand. Will be able to use what I have learnt with confidence
• Very useful information, relaxed atmosphere, friendly tutor
• So encouraging, very informative and feel equipped to start reading mentoring
• A great day full of good tips, knowledge and [I am] looking forward to starting
• Encouraging, very informative - ready to put into practice at school.
• Richard was very encouraging and a brilliant course leader, time passed very quickly and I've gained loads of useful skills today, thank you.
• Tutor was very informative and was made to feel comfortable with what I was learning and doing
• I am looking forward to being school co-ordinator for our mentors, very exciting!

ESCAL - Mad Hatters Talk Picnic and Presentation Afternoon

I am a bit late reporting, but 29 June 2011 was Communication Day in Sheffield, part of the National Year of Communication and Sheffield Children's Festival. The highlight was the Mad-Hatters Talk Picnic - Thosands of pupils having fun in the Peace Gardens:

Those are my photos, there is much better coverage at:

• Sheffield Star
• Yorkshire Post
• BBC News

On the same day Reading Matters had a small stand at the Presentation Afternoon for council employees and ESCAL Partners at the Town Hall. It was a really nice event:

Book Relief - Community Volunteer Reading Mentors Programme in partnership with the Bideford Learning Community

Reading Matters will be delivering some accredited training and support sessions on 6 and 7 July to prepare Volunteer Reading Mentors to deliver reading sessions in Bideford schools.

It is an exciting new progamme organised by the Book Relief in partnership the Bideford Learning Community.

Full details are available on the Book Relief website. Do take a look, especially if you would like to become a Volunteer Reading Mentor in a Bideford school and really help to improve the reading skills and confidence of young people, and gain some valuable work experience and a national accreditation.

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'!

2010 Book Awards - Sheffield Children's Book Award and YoungMinds

Today (23/11/10), I was at the Sheffield Children's Book Award at the City Hall where the 2010 winners were announced. I am sure there will be an official announcement with all the winners, but here is a hint - Morris the Mankiest Monster by Giles Andeae and Sarah McIntyre did really well.

It was a superb event the City Hall was full of kids shouting and screaming and stamping their feet for books and reading! I have never done so much clapping in one hour.

I was at the Children's Book award with some of the volunteers I had trained as Volunteers for the Summer Reading Challenge. Both project are organised by the Sheffield Library Service, who deserve a lot of credit.

Another award I have been involved in was also announced this week. The 2010 YoungMinds Book Award was won by Siobhan Curham, author of Dear Dylan.

There is a lovely post on Siobhan Curham's own blog about the award. She writes about how she struggled with a lack of confidence, and that 'I love being able to go into schools and tell the least confident of kids, ‘if I can do it then so can you.’ It is quite emotional and the blog post after she won is even more so.

I think our Reading Matters Mentors can also play a big part in boosting the self-esteem of struggling students, the comments on Siobham's blog show what a difference it can make.

A few football reading resources

I have been going on about football a lot recently, my last review was a football story. But the World Cup means (almost) everyone is hooked on the sport.

At both the Inspired for Life event in Rotherham and a celebration event at Sheffield Town Hall for Volunteer Reading Mentors last Friday, I talked to people about engaging reluctant readers. We found football was often a great 'hook' . I thought I would list a few of the resources I have found that can work really well:

• Football based stories, such as The Dirty Dozen I reviewed recently
• Football Games such as these England Football Stars Top Trumps Specials or this BrainBox Football Quiz
• Comic style stories such as My Brother's a Keeper or Moving the Goalposts
• A football based play, such as Not Just a Game or Selling Out
• Some non-fiction such as Great World Cup Moments or Wicked World Cup 2010
• Poems; I Love You, Football or Fantastic Football Poems
• Biographies, the Name Your Link are great and include Wayne Rooney and Hope Powell
• Learn some new skills with Soccer Skills (Usborne Activity Cards) or Football Skills
• Football Things to Make and Do or the official 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Activity Book

YoungMinds Book Award Meadowhead School Reading Leader Reviewers

I used to work for a great organisation, YoungMinds, the children's mental health charity. I was with them when their Book Award got started. It was something I loved being involved with (especially as we discussed the books in the local pub).

I am really pleased to get back involved with the YoungMinds Book Award. I have just received a full set of books on this years long list. I will be taking these to Meadowhead School to be reviewed by the Reading Leaders there.

Any young person can get involved by reviewing a book, more details on the YoungMinds website. The 2010 long list is:

• Dear Dylan, by Siobhan Curham (AuthorHouse)
• Desperate Measures, by Laura Summers (Piccadilly)
• Ember Fury, by Cathy Brett (Headline)
• Ice Lolly, by Jean Ure (Harper Collins Children’s
  Books)
• Inside, by J A Jarman (Andersen press)
• Lottie Biggs is not desperate, by Hayley Long
  (Macmillan Children’s Books)
• No Way To Go, by Bernard Ashley, (Hachette)
• Running on the cracks, by Julia Donaldson (Egmont)
• Them and Us, by Bali Rai (Barrington Stoke)
• The Truth about Leo, by David Yelland (Penguin)
• When I was Joe, by Keren David (Frances Lincoln
  Children’s Books)
• Zellah Green, by Vanessa Curtis (Egmont)

I am personally really pleased to see Them and Us by Bali Rai on the list because it is Barrington Stoke book, just like those I have been reviewing this year.

Barrington Stoke have been doing very well on the awards front recently. The Story of Matthew Buzzington by Andy Stanton has been shortlisted for both the Leeds Book Award and the Leicester Junior Book Award. And Night Hunger by Alan Gibbons was voted best Short Novel in the Hackney School Short Novels Awards.

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.

Where's Wally Activities

Last week we had a super Reading Matters training session for volunteer reading mentor co-ordinators in Sheffield Primary Schools. One of the subjects we touched on was books with no or limited words. I have blogged about books without words before, I think such books are great because they are not tied in to reading ages, get children familiarised with books, plus they encourage discussion and so are perfect for reading partnerships. One suggestion last week was the Where's Wally books, perfect for collaborative reading.

Now by chance I just spotted on the Reading Agency website a batch of Where's Wally activity sheets from publishers Walker.

What timing!

Character Profiles - One-to-one Reading Partnerships in Sheffield Schools

At the end of last term (16 December 2009) we held a celebration event for all the Reading Leaders we have trained in Sheffield schools this year. It was a fantastic event with author Alan Gibbons giving an inspired presentation, more like a comedy routine than a writer talking about his work. I'll give some more details when I get the photos through. In the meantime I wanted to share another activity we undertook with all the reading mentors we supported last year, over 200 of them!

All of the Sheffield mentors and their partners had the opportunity to complete a character profile about someone they read about together, and we have compiled the results into a book that you can read and download online: