You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
The National Literacy Trust is again partnering with WH Smith to deliver its Young Readers Programme.
The three-year national partnership, funded by the WH Smith Group Charitable Trust and WH Smith PLC, will encourage over 7,500 children at 25 schools across the UK to develop a love of reading.
Jonathan Douglas, director of the NLT, said: “We’re delighted to be renewing our partnership with WH Smith to bring our Young Reader’s Programme into so many more schools and spread a love of reading among children early on in their education. This programme will focus particularly on encouraging children to read with their peers, which has been shown to improve children’s engagement with reading. Reading books opens up a whole new world for children – it’s fun and is shown to support their education which means they can go on to reach their full potential.”
The project involves three year groups in each school, with children from ages six to nine, encouraged to choose new books and share reading time and recommendations with their peers and the wider school community. Children will earn badges and certificates as ‘peer reading champions’.
The children taking part in the project will also get the chance have their book reviews displayed in their local WH Smith store and they will visit the store to take part in activities and to choose a free book to keep.
Sarah Heath, WH Smith’s head of Communication and Corporate Responsibility, said: “Literacy and a love of reading is a subject very close to our hearts and we are pleased to be working with the National Literacy Trust again on this new project. Our store teams across the country are enjoying getting to know their partner schools and welcoming the children into our stores to choose their free books and see their book reviews on display.”
She added: “It is fantastic that the initiative is already helping some children improve their reading levels and we hope that, over the next three years, the programme will enable all the participating schools to really transform the way children think about reading.”
Schools who have previously participated have reported children reading more with each other and at home as a result of their involvement with the programme. One school found that the number of children reading at home more than doubled after they chose their first book and there was a 100% improvement in reading levels in one participating class.