The Trust's Reading Connects initiative is now funded by the Department for Education and Skills. Project manager Amelia Foster describes how it will work with schools to support the development of reading-rich environments.

One summer holiday in the Lakes, aged seven, I discovered reading. We visited a bookshop and I bought The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy. By the time we arrived home I had nearly finished the book. The next day I purchased The Worst Witch Strikes Again. From then on I always had my head in a book; I was a reader.

What made you a reader? When I ask this question in workshops, the responses are endlessly different and yet always the same - for each reader there is a unique experience that turned them from being someone who could technically read into someone who loved to read. For some, it is a parent or relative telling or reading stories, for others a book or author (Enid Blyton often crops up) and for others it was magazines, comics, the library, a friend. What makes each experience so similar is that for each person there is a trigger.

If schools are to develop pupils' reading skills, they need to help them love reading. It can be argued therefore that offering students a personal experience of reading for pleasure, whatever they choose to read, directly contributes to raising standards by helping to find that trigger.

Reading Connects can help schools promote reading for pleasure and offer every child a personal experience of reading for pleasure. It does this by providing a support network for schools to help them connect up families, children and the school community to create a culture where reading is accessible and acceptable to all.

Over the last 18 months, the Reading Connects strategic forum has brought together the key organisations interested in promoting reading for pleasure in schools to share good practice, develop innovative ways of working and work collaboratively to avoid duplication of effort.

Now, with DfES funding, Reading Connects is being further developed as part of the National Reading Campaign and its profile is being raised. Schools are encouraged to request a self-evaluation pack enabling them to audit the profile of reading for pleasure in the school, making use of the DfES self-evaluation framework for school libraries. The pack will also include reading marketing materials and practical reading promotion ideas.

Schools which are keen to promote and develop their strategy will be recruited to lead the field in the promotion and support of reading for pleasure. By returning action points developed as part of the self evaluation, they will be registered as 'Reading Connects schools', providing national recognition for their work and enabling them to share successful practice with others. They will also be entitled to use the logo and receive the Reading Connects toolkit, written by National Literacy Trust staff and the Reading Connects strategic forum.

Reading Connects provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and access to help with reading for pleasure-related queries; the website will include a searchable database of case studies and practical ideas for raising the profile of reading in school. Of course, for this to be successful, schools need to share their ideas and expertise. Reading Connects welcomes your input and ideas for website development; in turn, it will support schools by offering them a comprehensive support system.

Kick start reading in the new school year

Peer recommendations Start as you mean to go on by getting every class to design and make a laminated 'book of the month' poster so that a new book can be written in each month. Classrooms with computers can have recommended read screensavers; secondary schools can tailor these to reflect the subjects taught in each class. Don't forget magazines.
Induction Invite new pupils and their parents to a welcome reception in the library with food and drink. Negotiate a discount with a local bookshop for parents new to the school. Ask parents what activities they would like to participate in - think creatively about these. Families may come in for fun activities but not for a 'literacy class'.
Reading weblog Set up students' reading records as weblogs instead of paper diaries. See www.blogger.com for how to start using this free software.
Reading map Put up a map of the world and stick pins in it relating recommended reads to different countries or areas. This could be tied in to where people went on holiday, or where they would like to have gone.

Reading Connects schools will be encouraged to:

• place the promotion of reading for pleasure high in the school's priorities and encourage all members of staff to promote reading
• promote the importance of reading to parents
• integrate the concept of wider reading into units of work across the curriculum
  
• conduct reading interviews with all new pupils to establish their attitude to reading
• promote Reading Champions to engage boys, male staff and dads in reading
  
• engage reading volunteers from the community to support reading in school
• conduct a two-yearly self evaluation of progress, impacts and library usage.

Visit www.readingconnects.org.uk.

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