• Reading at Home -  informal parents' workshop (one hour)
• Reading Friends training  (three two-hour sessions)
• Better Reading Partnership (two days plus one half-day follow up)

Parents' workshops cover the importance of talking about the pictures in the book. Parents who are not confident themselves when reading can feel they have given some support if they have spent time talking about the pictures. They realise how valuable this is in any language. Introducing the names of characters, linking new words to the illustrations, relating the story to the child's own experiences, all prepare the reader thoroughly, ensuring greater levels of confidence when reading the text.

Workshops emphasise the importance of praise and the avoidance of "No". Children respond more positively to: "Have a closer look at that" or "What went wrong there?" Pupils with English as an additional language particularly benefit from additional questioning in a friendly, conversational tone, to assess understanding: "Why do you think he did that?" or "What do you think would happen if... ?"

Parents learn to encourage their child to read on and guess what a tricky word is by using the book's illustrations. At the workshops, which are based on the principles of the Bradford Better Reading Partnership, parents learn this isn't cheating, and compare helpful and misleading illustrations. Once they have seen the results, parents realise they can really make a difference to their own and other children's reading skills: "My little boy is really keen to read now when he comes home." Or as a class teacher commented: "It really makes a difference ... makes the children feel much more confident."

Reading Friends meet their pupil once or twice a week for half an hour supervised by a trained support worker. They use the same strategies. The reading partner notes the child's use of the three BRP reading strategies: grapho-phonic (visual), syntactic (structure) and semantic (meaning). Weaknesses are addressed through prompts: "Does that look right?", "Does that sound right?", and "Does that make sense?".

Prompts and specific praise are given to develop children's reading skills. Reading partners remove the blinkers from pupils who might focus on the letters of only one word; drawing them back to look for meaning from the whole text and the supporting illustrations. After the success of the first Reading Friends group, set up in February 1997, there are now a total of 25 groups in school throughout Kirklees. Five schools have two groups operating successfully. Typical improvements over ten weeks are a three to 18 month increase in reading age, plus a more positive attitude towards reading.

Initially Reading Friends were retired people from the local community who were eager to support children in school. The oldest Reading Friends are over eighty and the youngest are sixth-formers. The scheme now has parents helping out, including some who were already in school as lunch-time supervisors.

Parents who have successfully taken part in a Reading Friends project or have been supporting pupils regularly, are recommended by the school for the Better Reading Partnership training. The Reading Friends training is accredited through the Open College Network at levels one and two, leading on to Better Reading Partnership at level three. Better Reading Partnership practitioners are expected to do weekly running records and analyse the child's strengths and weaknesses in more detail than the Reading Friends.

Elsewhere in Kirklees parents can take part in Babies into Books projects where they discover how babies of seven months can enjoy books. They can join Storysacks groups where they learn how to bring a book to life through games and puppet making. The support for parents is there in abundance.

Pupils in secondary schools are given Book Buddy training, the teenage version of RF. The teenagers enjoy reading with younger pupils in feeder schools or Year 7, and they are also developing good parenting skills for the years to come.

Parents appreciate the fact that they are able to support their own children at home as well as the pupils they work with in school. Involving volunteers other than parents brings other benefits and strengthens the school's links with the community.