“There’s a hunger for it,” said Heather Wright, founder of the Reading Rocks blog, twitter chat and conferences, explaining why 200 teachers are spending a sunny autumn Saturday in a darkened lecture hall.
“It is a community of teachers who just want to share reading ideas and promote reading for pleasure. They feel passionate about it - and there’s a social aspect.”
The fourth Reading Rocks conference, and the first in the south of England, was held at Greenwich University on Saturday.
“I find it really stimulating,” said Jakera Kamali, assistant head of St Matthias School in east London. “I already magpied an idea about wringing a sentence for more meaning. I feel fuelled by the buzz.”
Her headteacher, Clare Sealy, agreed. “It’s properly inspiring, it makes you think and it makes you want to buy books to read to your class.”
Here are five things we learned from the conference.
1. Recommendations are valuable, specific recommendations are priceless
Use books to explore complementary themes, suggested Martin Galway, of Herts for Learning. He suggested Big Wolf, Little Wolf by Nadine Brun-Cosme and Olivier Tallec and I Love You Already by Jory John and Benji Davies, which look at togetherness vs being alone.
“Martin Galway’s session was really great, it’s given me an idea I can use with high attaining readers and I’ve got a great list of books I want to buy,” said Anna Spencer, a Year 6 teacher at Ivydale primary, Peckham.
2. Reading isn’t just about books
Professor Teresa Cremin, of the Open University, said one way of helping every child see themselves as a reader was to ask them to build a montage of everything they’ve read in the last 24 hours. This could include books, but may also show websites, cereal packets and comics.
3. Books about difficult subjects can be helpful for children
Author Nicola Davies has written stories about war, death and disability. She told delegates that children would pick up information and adults owed it to children to explain the world in age-appropriate ways. “It is our duty as adults to explain the world and all that’s in it,” she said.
4. The end of a book can be a starting point
Ms Davies said that when writing non-fiction for children, such as her book Lots, which is about biodiversity, the aim was for the reader to get to the end and think: “Wow! I want to know more.”
5. Teachers really like dancing
Forget playground trends like the floss or the hype Fortnite dance - it’s the homophone dance from BBC Super Movers that got teachers on their feet. Ready everybody: “There are some words that sound the same, they’re not spelled the same, they’re not spelled the same…We call them homophones.”
