[MUSIC PLAYING] ALEC WILLIAMS: "She ate the charred sausages anyway with plenty of ketchup.
The plan had brought back her appetite as plans so often do." Oh, sorry. You can get
lost in a book, can't you? My name is Alec Williams. I'm a trainer, a speaker, a storyteller,
and a big fan of libraries.
Now, Pearson kindly asked me if I would talk about reading in this video. So what I'm going
to do is pick out a few plums from that book. And by the way, if you hear a young child
say pick out plums, you'll know that they've been read to even from the nursery rhyme stage.
There are about 10 sections in the book, but don't panic. This is a very quick video, we're
just going to have a few points on each one.
I read for pleasure. Do you? I wonder if you're a teacher, whether children hear you say that
or hear staff, hear visitors say that. Because if they do, they'll realise that there's a
community of readers out there. And if you ask also, do you, it'll show you care, it'll
give you a chance to enthuse. Because readers are made by readers.
A National Literacy Trust report put it this way. Reading for pleasure is the reading we
do of our own free will anticipating the satisfaction that we get from the act of reading. It also
refers to reading that having begun at someone else's request, we continue because we're
enjoying it. Typically, it involves materials that reflect our own choice at our own time
and a place that suits us.
Your school, I know, may be concerned about particular categories of reader. It could
be boys reading. It could be doing the best for EFL learners. But getting that overall
reading culture right is more important than any one target. Everyone needs to sign up
to it. It should be built-in, rather than bolt-on.
Children may learn to read in the classroom, but in the school library they learn to be
readers. It's a special place. It should look different. You know, children should feel
it's theirs. You might not include a lion in your library, but it should be just as
exciting. Classroom collections are great too, of course. But when you put books together
in a library, children can explore particular authors, particular genres.
And they can get used to the way libraries work. They can maybe sprawl on the carpet.
They can sit together on the sofa. They can share all of those things that libraries have,
whether it's books, graphic novels, magazines, e-books, audiobooks, they learn about how
libraries work and they rehearse reader-like behaviour.
Let's look at storytelling and reading aloud. I'm a storyteller, but I don't have time to
tell you an Anansi the Spider story or to get you joining in with animal noises or refrains.
Suspect you're probably quite relieved, aren't you?
The more you read, the more children recognise themselves in books too. A book like that
about a West Indian family is so important. Don't forget to lift poetry off the page too,
which you can do by reading it aloud. This rather than children all reading a paragraph
around their class is what makes readers.
To me, the early years should be saturated in rhymes and stories, from parents and families
before school if possible, by practitioners and teachers definitely. Don't slow the story
down with questions. What's that? What colour is this? You know, keep the story moving and
broaden it out afterwards. What other stories about bears do we know?
Refer to stories in conversations. Oh, it's as scary as the Gruffalo, isn't it? Have themed
displays. Let children talk about their favourite choices even at this early stage. If children
associate books with pleasure, they'll want to know what those black squiggles on the
page mean because that's where the fun came from.
As the UKLA's Teachers as Readers report put it, instruction is about the skill, where
reading for pleasure is about the will. Instruction is teacher-directed, teacher-owned, where
reading for pleasure is child-directed. And reading for pleasure has a long-term aim,
creating readers for life. Children who want to read, read more quickly and more successfully,
which is why the early years are so important in planting the seeds of enjoyment.
I think reading is less like a ladder and more like a zigzag. There's an upward curve,
but there are plenty of sudden advances, slippages, and pauses for breath. Give children elbow
room to try a harder book or relax with an easier book. After all, that's what we adult
readers do.
Fight to stop keen readers being dismissed as bookworms. They're potential role models.
They can be reading buddies or mentors. They can be the heart of a school reading group.
They can be pupil librarians. They can be members of a school book quiz team. And they
can be involved in book selection occasionally too. Photographs of peer leaders with their
favourite stories are probably more valuable than those of celebrities with reading messages.
For so-called reluctant readers-- they can, but they won't-- start where they are. Try
a range of material, including non-fiction. Not just the stuff you know they like, but
the stuff they can can't resist. What about a natural history of poo, for example? Try
also short form reading like riddles, short stories, people like Paul Jennings, joke books,
and poems too.
ERIC, Everyone Reading In Class, or DEAR, Drop Everything And Read, are just two acronyms
for the idea of a regular quiet reading time. It could be at the beginning of the day or
it could be any time in the day, and teachers need to be seen reading too. Show that you
value reading all around the school. How about menu card mini-stories at the midday meal,
or short poems on the back doors of toilet cubicles?
Keep on reading tasters of books. And invite not just authors, but community figures into
school as well. They could be firefighters, sportspeople, local VIPs. They could talk
about what they're reading, what they remember reading, or what they're reading to children
or grandchildren. And of course they can ask your children for suggestions.
Ideally, a child's reading journey starts before school with rhymes and stories at home.
Children, wrote Emilie Buchwald, are made readers on the laps of their parents. And
public libraries have rhyme times for preschoolers too. Later, parents can model reading, even
if it's with a magazine or a cookbook. They can keep it fun. You know, well done, you
finished a whole page, is so much better than you're not having the TV on until you're finished.
Dads have a good role to play here especially with boys, and other family members can help
too. Parents can take children to the local library, they need you, switch on TV subtitles
so that children can read as they watch, and they can find non-fiction to match the children's
interests.
Where else to get help? Book Trust and the National Literacy Trust organise events and
campaigns and they help both schools and parents. The Centre for Literacy and Primary Education
is also very active, and the School Library Association supports anyone running a school
library.
Thanks for listening to this video. Thanks to Pearson for inviting me to do it. And good
luck to you in creating another generation of readers. Now, where was I? I think I was
about here, wasn't I? "Later that day, Vita crept out of the apartment leaving grandpa
sleeping and took a cab."