Reviews Jon Biddle, English lead and NEU rep at Moorlands Primary in Norfolk, is passionate about fostering a love of reading for pleasure. Here he shares ideas and tips for schools to try. Read
All rights and no wrongs I’M writing this article from the sofa in my lounge, two weeks into the autumn term. My youngest daughter has a cough and we’re waiting for a Covid-19 test. My class and my wife’s class are both missing out on their regular teacher, and my daughters are missing out on their education. It’s a hugely frustrating position to be in. Anyway, back to reading. For the first week of term at Moorlands, each class based its curriculum around Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, a powerful book by author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers. The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education provided free planning for schools to use. Some of the suggested work was about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We started talking about children’s rights in school and someone suggested that we all have ‘the right to read’. This made me think of Daniel Pennac’s stunning book, The Rights of the Reader, in which he argues very persuasively that a love of reading needs to be nurtured in children and goes on to create the Reader’s Bill of Rights. His points were summed up in a poster illustrated by Quentin Blake, which I believe should be displayed in every classroom. I shared copies of the poster with my class and we split into groups to discuss what we thought our rights as readers should be. The suggestions put forward gave me new insight into my pupils as readers. Some were what you’d probably expect – the right to read any book you want, the right to stop reading a book – but some were totally unexpected. The right to feel emotional when reading created the most conversation. We talked about how it’s OK to laugh and cry during a book and that being emotionally involved in a story is nothing to feel embarrassed about. I told them how, despite reading it aloud several times, I still get teary whenever I read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (right) to a class. Being able to have your own opinion about an author also came up a few times. 38
“I’ve never had time to read. But no one ever kept me from finishing a novel I loved.” Author Daniel Pennac One girl said she felt she had to read the same books as her friends, even though she didn’t particularly like them. Although it can be lovely to have ‘reading in common’, it’s equally as important for children to be able to make
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their own reading choices without worrying about what friends think. The right to read at any speed was explained beautifully: “Sometimes I want to slow down and think or talk about a book. Just because people read more words than me doesn’t make them better readers.” One that didn’t make the final list was the right to read books written for younger children. There is too much unnecessary pressure on children to be reading the ‘correct’ books for their age. It doesn’t matter – get them passionate about reading and they’ll soon find their own path. After sharing our finished work (below left) on social media, we were delighted to receive a message from poet Paul Jenkins who’d written a fantastic poem based upon what we had created (pauljenkinspoet.co.uk/ post/constantly-evolvingwords). This caused much excitement in class when the pupils realised that other people were interested in their thoughts and opinions. Giving children time to share what’s important to them about reading is a valuable activity and one I’d strongly recommend. Have the best term possible under the circumstances, and stay safe.
@jonnybid
