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The National Year of Reading
By Tom Bowles
Children more interested in playing computer games than reading have been encouraged to put down their Playstations and pick up a book for the National Year of Reading in 2008. The Department for Children, Schools and Families has launched the campaign aimed at helping more children to become assured and enthusiastic readers.
Ed Balls, Children, Schools and Families Secretary, praised teachers and support staff for improving primary school literacy figures in the UK, but said more needed to be done.
“It’s very important that we help more children to become confident readers and the National Year of Reading is an ideal opportunity for us all to build on this success,” he said.
He also urged parents to take an active role in helping their kids by reading with them at home.
“Surveys have shown that one in ten children is never read a bedtime story and half of children rarely discuss reading at home. Just ten minutes a day can create a love of reading from a very early age.”
Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, which is overseeing the project, said he wanted to see the whole nation celebrating literature.
“The National Year of Reading is a unique opportunity to enthuse and engage readers and to change the national reading culture,” he said. “It will be promoted via a series of themed national and local level events, such as ‘father to son’, ‘alternatives to books’ and ‘classics and modern literature’.”
See:
www.yearofreading.org.uk/index.html
Book Facts
Schools spend 2.5 times more on exam fees than on books.
Thirteen percent of children in England are said to dislike reading, compared to just 6% internationally.
Reading for pleasure has a positive effect on academic achievement with children from poorer backgrounds who enjoyed reading performing better in tests than those from wealthier homes who did not read for pleasure.
Britain spends less on secondary school books than any other developed country.
Spending £100 on books per primary school pupil has a greater impact on average test scores across English, maths and science than the same amount spent on ICT or staffing.
Since funding was devolved to individual schools in 2000, school libraries services have closed down in 19 local authorities.
(
Sources: TES survey; 2001 Progress in International Reading Literacy study; Book Trust; School Book alliance report; Open University, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Hope University)
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