Family involvement

Events and activities - practical ideas

General ideas
Storytelling
Transition (primary - secondary)

General

Primary
Secondary
Both

Both

Parents in the library
Reserve an area of the library for parents and wider family members and have appropriate display materials and a diverse range of reading materials including newspapers, fiction and non-fiction titles. Include the Quick Reads books in your parent section. Visit www.quickreads.org.uk.

Parents' room
Set up a parents' room in the school where there is always a member of staff at a particular time of day available to talk to parents informally - you could use this as a basis for setting up family learning workshops where parents can make books and other resources to use their with their child.

'What you hated about school' session for parents
Invite parents to a session where they can share what they disliked about school and their negative experiences. This could help you break the ice with parents who are wary of engaging with school by understanding why they avoid it.

Celebratory events
Promote reading achievement at celebratory events, especially those to which families are invited. Present children who have completed a reading challenge or become Reading Champions with a certificate.

Sports days and summer fairs
Set up a stall with relevant reading materials at events to which families are invited. If your school holds a sports day, display sporting magazines and memorabilia for families to borrow or buy.

Parents' evening
At parents' evenings, encourage teachers to direct parents towards a reading for pleasure stall. Make a feature of everything the school is doing to encourage pupils to read, with suggestions for how families can promote the same messages at home.

Ambassador sessions
Ask a parent who can inspire and relate to other parents to take on the role of family reading ambassador. Ask your ambassador to come in during a school event to talk to families about the importance of reading in the home.

Themed evenings
During parents' evenings, survey families about what they do in their free time. Use this information to hold a series of themed evenings that tap into families' interests. These evenings are opportunities to build relationships with families and a foundation for future events which encourage reading in the home specifically.

Visits from authors/poets
Use comedy as a vehicle to make families feel more relaxed in school. Invite authors/poets who are renowned for their humour to do a performance. Use their visits to change the image of reading in school and how families might perceive reading at home.

Demystify the jargon
Hold sessions for families to help clarify the role they can play in encouraging children to read. Talk to them about the books that pupils will be reading at school that year. Give them top tips for starting discussions about these books at home. For families of primary school children, explain phonics and the school's reading programmes in simple terms to prevent them from being intimidated by all the technical jargon surrounding this area.

Trips for families
Organise a trip for families to visit their local museum or the public library. Use the coach journey as a time for staff to get to know the families. Give them workbooks/quizzes to fill out during the visit.

Library visits
Plan a trip to the local library exclusively for parents. During the visit, encourage parents to join the library and inform them about all the services and different activities that take place there.

Richard and Judy book club
Hold your own Richard and Judy book club in school for parents, wider family members and staff. Discuss the book appearing on the television programme that evening and, if possible, show the live programme after your discussions to give your reading club national relevance. Allow a big enough gap between sessions to ensure that everybody has enough time to read the books. Visit www.richardandjudybookclub.co.uk.

Get caught reading - families on film
Invest in a digital mini-video camera and lend it to pupils on a rota system. Pupils have to catch their family reading at home on camera and bring the footage back in to school, where the teacher can make a montage video to show at parents' evening or an induction day. Encourage pupils to film their family reading anything, including newspapers, recipe books and labels.

Breakfast clubs
Encourage families to attend breakfast clubs as part of the Extended Schools agenda, during which they can read or discuss books in an informal setting. Ask the adults for a small contribution so that breakfast can be provided during the session. If families come from a diverse range of community backgrounds, encourage them to bring in their traditional breakfasts during the session so that they can sample each other's cuisine.

Microsoft Windows Movie Maker projects
Encourage parents and children to select a poem, song lyrics, newspaper article or a short story together using the internet or resources in the school library. In a follow-up session, show families how to use Movie Maker, a simple programme that allows users to transform their chosen text into a slide show with sound and visual effects. Short movies could be showcased at an Oscar-style event in school.

Speed dating
As a warm-up for a reading activity with parents and wider family members, hold a speed dating session where people can get to know each other in a relaxed situation. If appropriate, hold different themes for the sessions, such as 'my most embarrassing reading story' or 'my best reading recommendation.' Ask participants to vote for the most convincing story or recommendation following the event.

Practical workshops around families' interests
Find out what interests the families have by surveying them at parents' evenings or at parent induction days. Set up clubs or workshops which allow families to 'do' and also to read around their interests, for example making kites by following instructions from the internet or reference books.

Carnegie/Greenaway Shadowing
If your school is shadowing the Carnegie or Kate Greenaway book awards, encourage families to share the short-listed books at home and post reviews together on the official shadowing site: www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/shadowingsite. Hold a celebration event when the winners are announced. This activity has proven successful because it is a short-term commitment and there is a specific focus for families.

Recipe book
Ask parents to design their own page of a recipe book, which once compiled could be distributed to all parents or sold to raise funds for the school library.

Primary

Parents in lessons
Invite parents and wider family members to come into school to take part in reading activities in class, although be aware that this will probably suit more mums than dads. Parents could buddy up with pupils during group reading sessions.

National Children's Book Week (first full week of October)
During National Children's Book Week, organise a tea party themed around a popular children's book about food, for example 'Mrs Wobble the Waitress'. Encourage children and adults to read the book before the event and invite families to attend the party. Visit www.booktrust.org.uk.

National Storytelling Week (end of January - beginning of February)
Invite professional storytellers to school during National Storytelling Week and hold a workshop for families to encourage them to tell stories to their children or a workshop for pupils to encourage them to tell stories to their younger siblings. Visit www.sfs.org.uk.

World Book Day (first Thursday of month)
On World Book Day, organise a trip for families to go to their local bookshop to redeem their WBD vouchers. Visit www.worldbookday.com.

'Bring your parents to school' day
As a way of breaking down the barriers, hold a 'bring your parents to school' day. During the day, hold a 'show and tell' session and invite parents to bring in a personal object and describe what it is. Children could take pictures of the objects and make a book of all the 'show and tells' following the day.

Home made puppets
Organise a storytelling session and ask parents to make as many of the props (for example puppets) as possible.

Learning through play
Learning through play can be an effective way to engage families. Hold a drama workshop at school, during which families can act out scenes from their favourite nursery rhyme, book or poem.

'What's in the news?'
Invite parents and wider family members to come into school over a set period to read newspapers with the children. Follow this up with further research on the internet and in the library.This activity allows schools to link reading with a history or geography project.

How to read a picture
As a precursor activity to any reading activity, engage parents and wider family members by introducing the 'How to read a picture' activity. Give them a picture and ask them to imagine what the relationship is between the people in it, what happened before the picture was taken, what will happen afterwards and what is being discussed. This is a good icebreaker activity and will help participants to understand the value of a picture book for children and how it helps develop their imagination and powers of prediction.

Primary
Secondary
Both

Read an article (winter 2007) on:
Inviting an author, poet, illustrator or storyteller into your school (pdf)

Both

Family history project
Families are often interested in finding out about their own past. Visit local libraries and museums and set up a history detective project so that families can research their own family or local history. Set up storytelling sessions in school after the trip to give families the opportunity to recount what they have learnt to each other. There is a wealth of information on starting family history projects at www.bbc.co.uk/history/family history.

Dictaphones
If your school has access to a Dictaphone, lend it to pupils in turn to take home and record family members telling their own stories. Back in class, write up the stories and make a book or website showcasing all of the stories. Lend the story book out to families so that they can be shared together in the home.

Primary

Storytelling workshops
Set up a 'Bedtime Story' workshop/club in school and encourage families to exchange children's bedtime stories with each other. For follow-up sessions, introduce the idea of compiling all the stories for the school or website or a book.

Storyteller visits
Consider inviting a professional storyteller to your sessions to give top tips and help with technique. A list of storytellers is available from Reading Is Fundamental, UK project zone at www.rif.org.uk.

Memory boxes
Ask families to create memory boxes at home, including family photos, books or pieces of music. Use these boxes as a starting point for sharing personal stories.

Transfer meetings
Put encouraging reading on the agenda for primary secondary transfer meetings and build on best practice from primary schools on engaging families with reading.

School library visits
Offer primary school pupils amd their families the chance to visit the secondary school library.

PTA support
Include PTA support to strengthen the reading in the home message by having a range of PTA members, who reflect the school's intake, present at induction day. Encourage them to communicate and promote the approach to families and underline the importance of parents being role models for reading.

Summer Reading Challenge
Promote the Summer Reading Challenge at the summer term induction day. Follow this up in the autumn term with a Year 7 parents' event that celebrates the children's successes in the challenge. Linking up with the local public library service would be very useful for this. For more information visit www.readingagency.org.uk.

Postcards from the Gap
Use the Postcards from the Gap approach to help bridge the reading transfer gap for children. Ask each Year 6 child in primary school to write a recommended read on a postcard, which is then forwarded to the secondary school the child is transferring to. On induction day, these postcards could be displayed.

Recommended reads for families
Supply families with recommended reading lists for their children based on the pupils' recommendations and added to by the school librarian. Include a 'Recommended reads for families' section on the school website, including 'Great reads for your child'.

Reading stall
Have a 'Help get the whole school reading' stall at the induction day to attract parent volunteers.

Reading Challenge
Mail out a reading challenge to the new secondary intake during the summer holidays - most children rarely receive post addressed to them so this can be very motivating. This could include a reference to the Summer Reading Challenge.

Reading log
Set up a reading log/journal, based on the approach favoured by key feeder primary schools and include a space for families to add their comments.

Letters home
Include praise for reading in your family information system. Send letters home praising children for their reading achievements and asking families to congratulate the child as well.

School contract
If the school creates a contract for families of new Year 7 pupils, include a section on encouraging reading for pleasure in the home.

Use of the school library
At any forthcoming Year 7 parents' events, hold activities in the school library. This can be a very good way to extend the reading link and to enable extra staff or parents on the PTA to be present to offer support to parents who may not be confident readers themselves. Include an introduction to the library with an opportunity for parents to borrow books. You may wish to link up with the local public library to make books available.

Tutor group meetings
Arrange tutor group meetings for Year 7 parents, rather than whole-year meetings, to build on the home-school links at the transfer stage. Use the opportunity to show families the DfES's short film about primary secondary transfer, 'Getting Involved'. Visit www.parentscentre.gov.uk/webchatsinterviewsvideos/gettinginvolvedshortfilm.

Open sessions
Set up Friday afternoon open sessions for the families of low-attaining pupils, with refreshments served by the children. This could be a chance for families to see what their children have been doing. Include supporting reading in these sessions. This approach has proved popular with parents who are unemployed, who work night shifts or who are at home during the day.