If you’ve seen any of my twitter feed, you’ll see that I regularly tweet about Read for Good – an amazing charity I discovered last year when embarking on my role as Literacy Coordinator & Reading Ambassador (still the coolest job title in all the land!)
In a nutshell, it’s a sponsored read. However – it’s so much more than that. I remember watching their promo video for the first time and was surprised by the emotional impact it had on me. Only then did I realise how powerful and important their work is.
Just watching children in hospital is enough to pull at anyone’s heart strings. But what hit me most was the pure joy that Read for Good bring to these young people and their families at such a difficult time in their lives. We all know how important reading is to the average student – but to these children in particular, it gives them such an incredible gift.
So of course, I signed my school up straight away! What better way to promote the importance of reading than for students to see the wonderful outcome their money will achieve to those less fortunate than them. It also fits in perfectly with my school’s Character Values – win win.
I have to take a moment to say, that the most noticeable thing about Read for Good to me is their fantastic staff and support. You ring the contact number on the website and someone answers the phone – straight away! No dialling 1 for this and 2 for that – but a real live person. And they are always super helpful and knowledgeable, which is precious for busy teachers like myself.
You can simply request your Readathon pack from their website to be delivered during the term you intend to run it. They send you lots of useful goodies along with the sponsorship forms and bookmarks (I mean, what teacher doesn’t love a free pen?!) And you’re pretty much good to go.
Their website has a fabulous resources section wit everything you need to make your Readathon a success – from posters, to letter templates, to bunting!
When I chose to run my first Readathon, I decided to coincide the deadline with World Book Day as it seemed like a good way to celebrate how much money we had raised on the day where our whole school community was sharing a love of reading. And in that first year, we raised over £200! I’m now looking forward to running it for a second year.
Here are my top tips to make Readathon a success at your school:
- Get your pack in plenty of time ready for the launch
- Go into assemblies the week of the launch to get the message delivered to all students
- Get the support of your English teacher colleagues and ask them to hand out forms in their lessons
- Send letters home so parents are aware
- Promote heavily in school – posters, school social media
- Keep reminding students to take part
- Link to World Book Day to make it a celebratory event
- If there’s anything you need/questions – call the fabulous Read for Good team!
I can’t emphasise enough how strongly I feel that schools should take part in Readathon – it’s reading for all the right reasons. With my Literacy Coordinator hat on – it’s easy to see the positive impact this has on students’ attitudes to reading. But as a human, it’s just amazing to see children wanting to do something good for other children – and what’s more amazing than that?
Leading Literacy 