News
New FREE football literacy resources from Reading The Game and Tom Palmer
14 Sep 2010
NATIONAL LITERACY TRUST MEDIA RELEASE
14 September 2010
National Literacy Trust and Puffin launch free football resources and competition to kick off new football season
The National Literacy Trust and Tom Palmer, author of the Foul Play football series, have teamed up again to develop free literacy resources for teachers and literacy professionals to celebrate the start of the new football season.
Tom Palmer will be reading the first paragraph of an exciting football mystery tale via a video message on the National Literacy Trust website to launch a new storywriting competition. The competition is open for all schools and asks pupils to finish a story, started by Tom. There are fantastic prizes up for grabs, including the chance to have a character named after the winner in Tom’s new book series.
The brand new resources will include:
- A set of free stories to be read aloud in classrooms aimed at three different age groups, including one cliffhanger five-part story for use over one week
- A new toolkit of ideas to use football to promote reading, including games, book groups and events
- A set of new football writing exercises, using familiar forms of football reading, such as match reports and magazine profiles
- A national writing competition to finish the beginning of a story started by Tom Palmer. Prizes include a school visit by Tom and hundreds of his books. There is even the chance to have a character in a book from Tom’s 2012 series named after the winner
The resources will be aimed at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 classes (7-14 year olds) in schools, public libraries and Playing for Success centres.
Over the summer the National Literacy Trust witnessed a huge number of teachers downloading the football World Cup toolkit reading resource – scoring a goal with both students and teachers alike. The resource, Love Football: Love Reading, included games and activities to promote reading to young people using the excitement surrounding the World Cup. Due to its popularity, these exciting new football resources have been developed.
Jim Sells, National Literacy Trust, says:
“We were overwhelmed by the sheer number of downloads and the positive response we received following the launch of the World Cup toolkit. Tom’s daily episodic story, the World Cup Mystery, was uploaded on our website every day for teachers to read to their pupils in class, and proved to be a hit. So, due to popular demand the resources are back! We hope they will help encourage and inspire young people to develop a love of reading and writing in schools and libraries throughout the country.”
Diane Baker of Ghyllgrove Junior School in Basildon, says:
“The World Cup story proved to be an outstanding classroom read before the summer break. The supporting writing exercises and reading activities were great too. We are very much looking forward to using the new materials when we get back to school.”
The new resources will be live from 15 September with a link from www.tompalmer.co.uk taking teachers and librarians to a dedicated section of the National Literacy Trust website.
Click here to go to the competition.
Click here to see the resources.
Ends
Competition brief
- Tom Palmer has written a 200 word beginning to a Foul Play story
- Children are invited to complete it with up to 500 more words
- Children must be Y3 to Y8 and their age will be taken into account
- Schools can submit as many entries as they like
Prizes
First place
- The school will receive 60 Tom Palmer books and a free expenses-paid visit from the author
- The child will receive all Tom’s eleven Puffin books, signed, and their name being used as a character in Tom’s new 9+ series
Second and third place
- The schools will receive 30 Tom Palmer books
- The children will receive all Tom’s eleven Puffin books, signed
The competition text (this is a video on the National Literacy Trust website)
Foul Play: the Exploding Trophy
Danny and Charlotte had solved several crimes in the last year.
They had taken on a Russian billionaire who wanted to murder England players. And a madman desperate to burgle famous footballers’ houses. They had been chased, locked up, shot at and worse.
But this was the most dangerous situation they had ever been in.
They were locked in the groundsman’s sheds at Wembley Stadium. Surrounded by giant lawn mowers and tools. But none of these tools were going to help them take on the three armed men outside the door.
And sitting doing nothing was not going to help them either. If they didn’t get out of the sheds now, one of the teams was going win the FA Cup and – when they were presented with it – it was going to blow up.
That’s what they had been trying to stop happening when they had been caught and imprisoned here.
Now they were powerless.
Charlotte heard the roar of the crowd as the players came on the pitch. She looked at Danny.
The match was about to start.
Notes to Editors
About the National Literacy Trust
The National Literacy Trust is an independent charity that transforms lives through literacy. We believe that society will only be fair when everyone has the literacy skills they need to communicate, to fulfil their potential and to contribute more to society. We campaign to improve public understanding of the vital importance of literacy, as well as delivering projects and working in partnership to reach those most in need of support.
The National Literacy Trust sport and literacy initiative, Reading The Game, works with professional football to promote literacy and uses the motivational power of football to encourage reading for all ages. It is largely funded by the Football Foundation and works in partnership with the Premier League, the PFA, the FA, the Football League and the DfE initiative - Playing for Success. www.readingthegame.org.uk
To help us transform lives through literacy, you can make a donation. To find out how visit http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/About/donate.html
National Literacy Trust is a registered charity no. 1116260, and a company limited by guarantee, no. 5836486. Registered in England and Wales. Registered address: 68 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1RL. Tel: 020 7587 1842
About Tom Palmer
Tom Palmer writes football fiction for Puffin. His children’s series include Foul Play and Football Academy. He has also written for Franklin Watts, Barrington Stoke and Mainstream. He is an experienced reader development consultant, working regularly for NLT, the Reading Agency and the British Council and visiting over 2000 schools in the last decade.
