Reading Connects is delivered by the NLT on behalf of the DCSF
2008 National Year of Reading
January to December 2008 is the National Year of Reading (NYR).
Public activity for the NYR started in April, with each month having an individual 'theme'. Send us your practical ideas and suggestions for activities for the NYR and we will list them on the website.
*Ideas with a star are from Don Valley School, Doncaster.
April– Read all about it
Read anything and everything, anywhere and everywhere. Run activities that celebrate reading and highlight a sense of challenge. Use newspapers or journalism as a tie-in.
Encourage boys and men to write newspaper-style reviews of sport games, eg a football match. Conduct a competition within school to find the best, and offer rewards
Conduct a reading survey throughout school and look at what is being read
Compare early and current newspapers - this activity could be cross-curricular with research into past events
*Invite a local journalist to come and give a talk about journalism as a career, or try and set up a visit to your local newspaper
*Get students to write a recommended reads list for their favourite celebrity, with a prize for the most imaginative.
May – Mind and body
Celebrate the links between reading and health. Run activities in partnership with health and wellbeing agencies. Emphasise the importance of bonding through parent and child reading together. Emphasise the link between mind and body.
Many library authorities run ‘Books on prescription’ or ‘Bibliotherapy’, and many surgeries have a BBC RaW Swaps bookshelf
Encourage/train staff in local sports clubs to become storytellers
Develop recipes for reading and read normal recipes
*Create a library display around weird and wonderful holistic therapies - hold a competition to see who can come up with the most inventive therapy
*Use your PE, health, social care and catering staff in reading promotions
June – Reading escapes
Focus on holiday reading or use the Summer Reading Challenge as a hook in schools and libraries. Focus on how reading helps you escape into different worlds. Try football escapes to tie-in with Euro 2008, or reads to escape the football!
Use recommendations for holiday reading, including from one family to another, or set up mini-travel agents in school and use cross curriculur links
Find the best escape stories, eg adventure stories – escape from prison, or sci-fi stories - escape from Earth. Where do you escape to read, eg a reading shed?
Desert island books - books you would take with you to a deserted island
*Use postcards from the gap idea to work with students facing transition.
July – Rhythm and rhyme
Celebrate poetry and lyrics from Shakespeare to Snoop Dogg. Make links between the music industry and schools. For families, don't forget 'rhyme time' sessions at your local library.
Have a worst/best lyrics ever or worst/best football chants ever contest
Get a travelling poet, rapper or lyricist to visit school and organise poetry slams with kids involved as an end of term event
Poetry/singing in groups, eg campfire connections for summer groups
August – Read the game
Sportsmen and women are an inspiration to millions. Their influence can help promte the importance of reading to people who might not otherwise be reached. Use the Beijing Olympics as a tie-in.
Use the start of the football season as a hook
Link to the Summer Reading Challenge (sport themed in 2008) and sell the idea to your students
Encourage secondary school pupils to volunteer to help in libraries with the Summer Reading Challenge
September – You are what you read.
Use reading as a way in to celebrate and explore cultural, personal and local identities. Think about city-wide reads, family history research and local community history.
Gather stories from the school community (past and present) and the wider community about your local history, link up with the history department
*Make displays of new students postcards from the gap- include the top three reads from each feeder school
October – Word of mouth
Celebrate all oral storytelling traditions: storytelling; reading out loud; reading together; reading aloud; live literature and so on. Also a great way to harness the power of recommended reads.
Get parents/carers to pledge to read aloud to their children
*Set up staff storytelling training or invite a storyteller into school
*Use Halloween to run lunch-time ghost-story read aloud sessions by candlelight
November – Screen reads
Explore the diversity of reading and writing – taking it to scripts, television and films. Get involved with Film Education (www.filmeducation.org).
Look for links with children’s/youth drama in your local authority and other centres
Use the end-of-term school play to link in with books
Link to story-boarding for films/TV (cross-curricular) or silent films -use of mime and captions, how to convey the written word in silence
*Hold an 'oscars' style ceremony where pupils vote for their favourite reads
*Hold a week of library lunchtime showings of films adapted from books
December – Write the future
A celebration of all forms of writing and technology. Think about blogging, texting or creative writing with a futuristic theme.
Investigate the language that new media has created and the youth culture around it
Think about the immediacy in reporting vs thinking first, virtual reality and the future of communication
Get dads and male family members to pledge reading themed new years resolutions online, eg reading with their kids
The National Literacy Trust is leading a consortium of organisations to deliver the National Year of Reading on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
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