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create social skills and have a great impact on a child’s development. Reading to a child
is very rewarding as the child loves to hear stories and will hang on your every word”.”
(Ireland)
“The fact that both teachers and parents like reading books at a great percentage (67%
and 50%), is a significant factor that motives and
encourages children to read more. Moreover,
the majority of pupils choose by themselves the
books that they read (71%), which refer at a
topic that interests them and like discussing it
with friends or family.” (Greece)
“Parents should be involved in teaching their
children to spend their time with books. Such a
programme integrates parents with the school
and helps them to understand their role in
children education”.(Poland)
“Time to read at home (Q23) revealed a significant increase which would again suggest
that reading for pleasure was being valued within the home environment ……..anecdotal
comments from parents during consultation evenings indicated that this was as a result
of the implementation programme within school.” (UK)
5.
Reading During the School Holidays:
One partner reported a marked increase in pupils reading during school holidays.
“The percentage of the pupils that they read during the holidays rose to 38%.” (Greece)
Challenges:
As is evident above there were significant successes of the programme across all
European partners. However as with any implementation process challenges and areas
for development of the programme were highlighted and reported as follows.
1.
Sustainability of the Lifelong Readers Programme:
“The particular challenges were mainly articulated by the 2 key members of staff and
included…….the logistics of monitoring the process within the school and how they
could sustain the impact of the programme in the future.” (UK)
“a reading promotion team is needed to oversee the implementation of the lifelong
readers programme. It is important that this group is not part of a larger School
Evaluation Team, as reading promotion must be a priority of one team of practitioners, if
it is to be sustainable” (Ireland)
