Review policy

Due to time pressures, I am unable to commit to reviewing books at the moment. However, please feel free to recommend or discuss by tweeting @MsTick68 or commenting on here. Thank you!

Monday 27 December 2010

Bookgifting- slightly off topic...

I gave two books this Christmas; one to a person who can read and one to a person who can't yet. I gave my dad this and my nephew (who is three, and can recognise the first letter of his name) this. A new Shirley Hughes book is such a delight that I bought it even though my sister will save it until next Christmas to read it to him.

My nephew is a lucky little boy, in terms of his reading development. He comes from an extended family that values reading. He has always been read and sung to (and since his mum, Nana and Auntie Ali are all teachers, he has people in his life who know the importance of this for his language and literacy development from birth). His dad, grandpa and his other auntie are all avid readers, talkers and all love stories and songs.

Even so, we are not experts in books for very small children (hence why I got it wrong with the Shirley Hughes book). We need advice from people who are experts in books for small children. This is why Booktrust and The Literacy Trust are so vitally important. The charity works with literacy experts and publishers, and the books are given by health visitors, not teachers or librarians. Health visitors come into the home, they have a long term, supportive relationship with the family and can talk about the importance of rhymes, reading and song to the baby's development. In addition, while poverty is most definitely an indicator that the child may struggle with reading later on (and of course the family may be poor due to the parents' poor literacy skills) there are plenty of families with a comfortable income who own very few books as well, and I have taught middle class children who had never been to a bookshop or library and chosen their own books either. In fact, I have taught children who were not allowed to touch their own books!

And if you'd like to get involved with bookgifting for adults, have a look at this! An amazing way to raise interest in reading in adults.

While this is extremely good news, pressure must be kept up on Michael Gove and the Department for Education, and the Literacy Trust and Booktrust must be supported. Please follow @savebookstart if you are on Twitter, like the Booktrust page on Facebook and write to your MP. The £13million (I believe) that Booktrust gets from DfE is a tiny amount of money to the government, but the good it does is incalculable.

4 comments:

  1. I bought more books for Dan than you can shake a stick at. Her favourite was 'The Jolly Postman' by the Ahlbergs. Superb book x

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  2. Love that book! We had a lot of books from jumble sales. It's a sad fact though that there are lots of homes without books, where children don't see their parents reading, and research demonstrates that there is a strong link between book ownership and academic success, but also emotional wellbeing.

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  3. thanks for sharing information in the website,i'very like reading in website,good luck

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