Reading is a wonderful gift and when it’s combined with imagination, it opens up the world like nothing else.
Books, like music and film, can evoke so many emotions and take us to places we never thought possible. That’s why I love book shops and libraries, like a Tardis, you can open the doors and be anywhere!
One of the things I dearly wanted to do when I had published my books was to read them to children, and not just my children! Using Bear’s legacy to encourage children to read is so important to me. When I was asked if I would go into a primary school and read to children, I jumped at the chance! And that’s exactly what I did last week.
The Mount Junior, Infant and Nursery School in Wakefield, West Yorkshire offered me the opportunity of going in and reading to the Year 1 and reception classes [ages 4-6] Of course I said yes!
Now, in my everyday work, I’ve given so many talks and workshops to adults, community groups and colleges without blinking an eye. Councillors and stakeholders? No problem, but primary children…… I knew I had to be prepared or I could face humiliation on an epic scale!
There were no expectations from the school other than me simply going in and reading to the classes, but I wanted to offer more than that. I had an hour with Year 1 and 45 minutes with reception. Just reading the book would take 10-15 minutes tops even considering the inevitable interruptions I would have. So, what could I do with the remaining time to give the children a fun and memorable experience?
I planned a little ‘Create a Character’ workshop. In this I talked about using our imaginations to make new characters, what features and habits those characters might have, what they might look and sound like.
Be prepared…. And then some.
I’d created a PowerPoint of the book so that all children could see the images. Given their ages, images are so important to help tell the story. In my experience, technology is great BUT always be prepared for it not to work and have your back-up plan ready. The smartboard wasn’t working and therefore, I couldn’t use the PowerPoint, so back-up plan it was!
I was ready for this so didn’t stress about it. I had a chat to the children, asked them about reading and drawing and of course, about any pets that they have. Then I moved onto reading the book…… I’ve been a parent for a long time and know how to engage my children with the characters in a book, doing the different voices and the oh so vital facial expressions that help bring those characters to life.
Now, I would like to thank the teacher at this point because they took a photograph of my ‘expressive’ face whilst I was doing Bear’s scowl and sulk….. luckily that photograph is on the class page and only available to parents because, believe me, it is not my best look! Neither is this one, but hey ho 🙂
The children told me tales of their pets doing similar things and they were suitably amused at Bear’s muddy puddle jump at the end, especially as it’s a true story!
Creating the character was up next and was met with great enthusiasm. They chose the character [a cat-dog for Year 1 and a dog for reception] they chose the type of fur, the face and even what they might be wearing. Drawing these with the sketchpad on my knee was different but I managed, kind of.
The children then thought about what kind of personality the character had, happy or sad, quiet or loud, friendly of grumpy. They thought about the character’s favourite things and gave them a name.
The sessions seemed to go very quickly but I managed to get everything done that I’d hoped in that time and of course at the end of the session I thanked them all for being such awesome listeners and character creators. I gave them all a bookmark as a thank you and explained how useful a bookmark is, kids love a freebie [who doesn’t] so they were all really happy with their little gift.
Things to think about
Layout – Try to find out how the classroom is set out in advance. I’ve been to a number of primary schools and was expecting tables and chairs for the children. Here, the classes sat on a mat in front of me, which meant that the nearest child was 2 feet away, I was very careful not to stand on fingers. [Hello, I’m here to read to you and crunch some of your fingers isn’t a great way to get invited back!]
Equipment – Prepare for plans B & C, if you don’t need them, great but chances are you just might! I wasn’t sure if the classroom had a flip chart, so I took an A2 sketchpad and a set of coloured pens. Kids have a great habit of leaving lids off of pens, so by taking my own, I knew they would work rather than trying to use pens that were dried out!
Controlling the class – Each school will have a way for the teacher to tell the children to be quiet and listen. It might be a hand in the air or a countdown from 5, whatever it is, try to find out before you go in. That way if your over excited audience all try to talk at once, you have a method familiar to them to tell them to stop talking and listen.
Questions – Encourage the class to ask questions at the end of the reading unless you want them throughout. If you tell the class they will be able to ask questions afterwards, it can cut down interruptions when you are mid-flow into your story.
Get ready – Children are amazing, their offending filters are very different to adults’ and they will ask you questions that you might not expect, so expect the unexpected! One child was obsessed with Mario, so every question was Mario-based, as it’s something I haven’t seen I had to try to bring Mario back in line with the session! We did however draw a moustache on the character we created due to the aforementioned Mario worship.
Ask the teacher to take photographs – Obviously if you’re leading a reading, you can’t take photo’s at the same time, so ask the teacher to do that. If you’re going to use images for your social media, get permission to do so. You can’t go ahead and use images showing children if you don’t have permission to do so.
And maybe ask for more pictures than you need – Unfortunately for me, another teacher took a photograph of me doing the character workshop with the reception class and got me mid talk…… I look like a fish gasping for air.
Most of all, enjoy it. Bring your enthusiasm to the class because if you’re not having fun, how are you going to get the kids to have fun?
Inspire them to get reading, to get creative and use their beautiful imaginations.