Turning boys into reading champions.
Osborne, Sarah
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The National Reading Network for Schools and Early Years Settings
offers three great initiatives to encourage reading for pleasure that
are free to join and will complement your school's literacy
strategy: Reading Champions, Reading Connects and Early Reading
Connects. Reading Champions is all about involving boys in developing a
reading culture. While Reading Connects is about engraining a positive
reading culture throughout your school, by using staff members, pupils,
families, local libraries and the wider community. Finally, following
the success of Reading Connects, Early Reading Connects was launched to
help engage and involve children's families in developing a love of
language, stories and reading, and to share good practice and resources
and build their confidence in supporting their children.
All three initiatives are delivered by the National Literacy Trust
and funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. They
are completely free to join. On signing up, members receive toolkits
full of great ideas, access to a national network and to a bank of case
studies highlighting other schools' great work to promote reading,
monthly newsletters full of discounts and details about competitions we
are running, as well as ongoing support and advice.
A core aspect of the three projects is the dissemination of good
practice and support through the network of active members who share
advice and ideas--Reading Connects now has over 5,000 member schools,
while Reading Champions has over 2,500.
To sign up to any of the three projects, visit
www.nationalreadingnetwork.org.uk.
Reading Champions has recently announced the results of its annual
School of the Year competition. The Reading Champions project is
designed to get the boys in school hooked on reading. Schools invite
boys who are influential among pupils to become Reading Champions. These
Reading Champions encourage other boys to get into reading by running
positive activities and promotions. This year's winner, Ambleside
Primary School in Nottingham, used a number of innovative strategies
that had a huge impact on their boys' reading and the creation of a
positive reading atmosphere throughout the school. Here are a few of the
ways that Ambleside got their boys reading ...
Ensuring staff are onside
To kick off the project Ambleside helped to organise a Reading
Champions launch day, during which staff members were given some
background on the initiative. Also, teachers from a local secondary
school, which had already implemented Reading Champions, talked about
how they were getting their boys reading. This launch day was also
followed up in subsequent staff meetings with a particular focus on
getting the male teachers involved. The idea was to get all the staff
onboard.
Male staff held an 'Extreme Reading Challenge' over the
Christmas holidays, where they photographed themselves reading in
extreme or unusual locations. These pictures were displayed prominently
throughout the school. The pupils judged the entries, before being given
the chance to take part in their own Extreme Reading competition during
the Easter holidays.
Getting the blokes onboard
The school sent letters to parents and members of the local
community inviting them to come into school to read with the children.
Ambleside was particularly keen to encourage parental involvement, so
they held an 'Enjoy Books Together' morning where parents were
taught about the importance of reading to children and given some tips
on reading together. Following this, on World Book Day the school held a
'Bring a man to school' day, where pupils were asked to bring
cousins, dads or granddads into school for a morning reading session.
Local community members such as police officers, a fire liaison officer
and the local Family Learning Development Officer were also invited to
school to join in.
The pupil power behind the project
A significant aspect of Ambleside's success was the fact that
the boys were really encouraged to own the project, and given freedom to
input ideas and suggest new reading initiatives. There was also frequent
consultation with the Reading Champion boys regarding which boy-friendly
books they most wanted to buy for the school library.
One idea that the boys came up with was called 'Place 2
Read'. Younger pupils would post a reading request slip in a box.
The pupil would then be collected from class by a Reading Champion for a
buddy reading session. The Reading Champions designed all the slips, the
box and the format of the project and then visited classes to promote
the initiative.
Another group of boys set up a lunch club in which younger boys
were encouraged to come and read with them. As part of this they
produced laminated card invitations for the younger pupils and chose a
selection of boy-friendly books. These buddy sessions took place around
school in visible locations. Books could be taken outside onto the field
or into the playground at dinner time. One of the Reading Champions
named Kisheen commented: 'I like being a Reading Champion because I
get to read with younger children. I also like being a Reading Champion
because I am helping people as well as myself to read. '
Barriers and challenges
It has been a remarkably successful year for Ambleside but it
hasn't all been easy. Doing so much to encourage the boys to read
has not been without its challenges. In particular, Year 3 boys were
hard to involve. They struggled and needed regular support to keep them
reading. In order to combat this, local fire-fighter Michael Ellis came
into the school on a weekly basis specifically to support this group of
boys.
It was also a challenge to sustain staff commitment. A lot of work
was therefore done to highlight the importance of Reading Champions and
the positive impact of getting boys into reading to staff. This included
running competitions specifically targeting teachers.
Time and money has also been scarce, but involving one of the
school's governors in the reading events that took place meant that
there was influential support when it came to fundraising for new books,
and getting hold of free materials for the school. Support from staff
and governors ensured that getting the boys reading, and the Reading
Champions scheme, remained a whole school priority.
Feeling inspired to get your boys hooked on reading? Visit the
Reading Champions website and get more ideas from other schools in the
network.
Sarah Osborne
Manager, National Reading Network
National Literacy Trust
