This is the information for the 2009 Challenge. Soon to be updated for Space Hop, the 2010 Summer Reading Challenge.
The Summer Reading Challenge, aimed at children aged 4-11 years, inspires children to read in the long summer break when their reading skills can decline without the regular reading activity at school. It’s been running for ten years in the UK and each year there’s a different theme. Last year’s theme was sport, called Team Read, and nearly 700,000 children took part in the UK. 2009 will be the 11th Challenge, and we are inviting children to embark on a fantastical adventure, and become a Quest Seeker.
Research shows that taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge improves children’s reading range, confidence and enjoyment. Literacy Co-ordinators have noticed positive differences:
“The Summer Reading Challenge is an excellent way of sustaining reading levels whilst not in school”
Read the Report on 2008 Summer Reading Challenge, Team Read (pdf)
How your primary school can participate
Before the summer holidays
You can help to promote the Summer Reading Challenge in school by linking with your local library. You can find out what will be happening in the library during the summer and whether you can get promotional materials to display in school, invitations to hand out to children and their families, or information to include in school-home newsletters.
Here is a downloadable A4 colour poster about the Challenge for your notice board or staffroom:
- English (pdf)
- Welsh & English version (pdf)
Here are some classroom ideas on how to get pupils enthused and ready to take on this summer’s Quest Seekers Summer Reading Challenge. These are aimed at 7–11 year olds.
There’s a terrific website for children to support the challenge with games, author blogs, and live “book choice help” from real librarians! Live from 15 June 2009 at www.questseekers.org.uk
For more information about how the Challenge helps children enjoy reading and develops their confidence and skills, here’s a useful leaflet produced for teachers.
- For English Schools English Advocacy leaflet (pdf)
- For Scottish Schools Scottish Advocacy leaflet (pdf)
- For Welsh / Northern Irish Schools WELSH advocacy leaflet (pdf)
After the summer holidays
There are also plenty of ways of using the Summer Reading Challenge in the autumn term to encourage reading, and enthuse pupils to talk about the books they’ve enjoyed. Here are some Quest Seekers classroom ideas and prepared activity sheets to use after the summer.
The large wall display poster described in the above activities document can be downloaded as 6 separate colour A4 pages below (not all libraries will have printed copies of this poster available for schools)
- Poster1Funny (pdf)
- Poster2Exciting (pdf)
- Poster3Animal (pdf)
- Poster4Fantasy (pdf)
- Poster5Family (pdf)
- Poster6Bin (pdf)
Challenge activities for 11-12 year olds in transition (from primary to secondary school)
For pupils at the top end of primary school, there is a special little Beyond Quest Seekers booklet, which is packed with reading tips and fun activities linked to the Challenge. Library services will be using it in a variety of ways. For example it may be handed out as part of the Challenge, or given to year 6 children in primary school before the holidays (via the library service), or given out by secondary school English teachers / librarians during library induction lessons to year 7s in the new term at secondary school. The Beyond Quest Seekers booklet is not available in every authority, so you’ll need to check with your local library to see if they are offering this to older or transition children, either in libraries or via the schools, or transition teams.
Here are some ideas to use alongside the Beyond Quest Seekers booklet.
- Beyond QuestSeekers Transition Year (pdf)
- A PDF of the full booklet is downloadable for reference, but not suitable for printing off to use with children (pdf)
Schools and libraries working together
For additional information on how schools and libraries can work together throughout the year, please see the following 24 page guides, which look at reader motivation and address how public library and primary school partnerships can support teachers in delivering the curriculum. They also contain examples of successful school-library partnerships. These were produced by the National Literacy Trust in partnership with The Reading Agency, and supported by DCSF.
- For primary schools (pdf)
- For Secondary schools (pdf)
- For a check list of other projects run by The Reading Agency which involve schools, please click here: www.readingagency.org.uk/children/schools/
Any enquiries, please contact your local library service first, or e-mail us at: SRCschools@readingagency.org.uk
