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

SUFC and PwC - best book forward

The title stands for Sheffield United Football Club and PricewaterhouseCoopers. I was hoping to return after my half term break to gloriously report that we are working with a Premier league club. Sadly this did quite pan out, and Sheffield United will remain in the Championship, but more importantly some of their staff and their corporate partners will be attending reading sessions at some schools close to the SUFC Academy this term, as part of their best book forward project.

We had a excellent training session at the swanky PwC offices in Sheffield, it was great to have such a diverse bunch of mentors, I am sure they will all do really well. The next step is to prepare some specific materials and get them going!

Inspire Rotherham Activity

It has been quite a couple of weeks, there has been an awful lot of activity relating to the new Inspire Rotherham Project. We have followed up the training and visit to Maltby Manor school with the Rotherham United players with visits to Maltby Crags and Maltby Redwood schools, there are slideshows below.

In the middle of these visits the Inspire Rotherham project was officially launched, see some pictures online. Reading Matters had stall in All Saints Square on 21st March. It was good to be involved, we weren't selling much, just telling people about Reading Matters and sharing the word sheets we had prepared for the partnership with RUFC. It was also the first time our new range of Read Up trading cards got a public outing, all the RUFC players we trained have a card with a mixture of football and reading skills and a few facts. They were hugely popular, and we gave out pretty much our entire stock.

As well as all this we have been running a number of partnerships as part of the Inspire Rotherham pilot in Maltby:

• A Reading Leaders course with pupils from Maltby Community School
• A Reading Together workshop for parents at Maltby Community School
• Training for practioners, such as Teaching Assistants, from the Maltby area
  
• New volunteer reading mentors have begun at Hilltop Special School
• A Parents workshop in partnership with GROW

RUFC at Maltby Crags Infant School

RUFC at Matby Readwood School

Rotherham United players visit Maltby Manor Primary School

The players from Rotherham United, trained by Reading Matters, visited their first school, Maltby Manor, on Thursday (12/3/09). They read with six pupils each in a series of reading partnerships. The last sessions parents of the pupils sat in as well.

It was a huge success. The pupils were brilliantly excited, not only about meeting the players, but also about their choice of books. The players were excellent too. I think some were a bit nervous, especially when the parents joined them, but they all took it in their stride and really got stuck in. There was a lovely sound of concentrated reading in the school hall, library and corridors as the players and their partners focused on their books.

As one of the first key activities under the Inspire Rotherham banners the visit created quite a buzz. There were all sorts of people there including Paul Douglas (RUFC Chief Operating Officer) , Joyce Thacker (RMBC Strategic Director Children and Young People's Services) and Ruth Adams (Yorkshire Forward). The press were also in attendance and the day was captured nicely by a report on Look North, look out for the Reading Matters worksheets, which I hope to be able to share online soon!

Training Rotherham United!

We have just completed two days of training with Rotherham United, safe to say I wasn't giving them tips on playing the offside trap, rather they are going to be Reading Matters Reading Mentors as part of the Inspire Rotherham project. It is exciting stuff, and yesterday, 5 March, was especially fun because it was World Book Day.



Next week the players begin attending schools in Maltby as part of the pilot for Inspire Rotherham. We anticipate extending this to other schools in Rotherham after the official launch of Inspire Rotherham on Saturday 21st March.

Reading Matters and Rotherham United will be working together for the launch in Rotherham town centre and at Don Valley Stadium where they will be playing against Chesterfield. We are planing all sorts of activities and resources to engage people to read, should be fun.

We have got a bit of coverage in the press, and hopefully there will be more to come. We were in The Rotherham Advertiser on Friday 6 March and you can read articles in The Star, Press Association and Rotherham Web online.