Adults read too!
Social media can be a great way to engage parents and families in your school’s reading culture. Over the past few years, we’ve run campaigns such as #MyDadReads and #BeltonReads (Belton is the name of the village).
We wanted to demonstrate to our pupils that adults also read for pleasure, so started a campaign on Twitter and Facebook, encouraging family members to send in photos of them reading, along with a quote explaining what they enjoyed about it. We encouraged them to be as varied as possible with their reading choices – books, magazines, instruction manuals and so on.
After about a week, we’d had 40 photos sent in. We then created a slideshow to share in assembly (which caused great excitement) and put up a display in the library that could be seen by everyone.
Feedback from parents was very positive and included comments such as ‘It actually made me sit and read for a change. Thank you!’ and ‘I loved seeing what everyone else was reading’. It’s an idea that changes slightly every year or so, but one that the local community is always very supportive of.
Jon Biddle, Y5/6 teacher and English co-ordinator
