Interesting Facts

According to former children's laureate Michael Morpurgo, teachers should let themselves cry in class when reading poignant stories. (He says it would help teach children that books matter. Of course I don't read, I make everyone else read, although I think Hermine had a lump in her throat when we were reading Wind in the Willows.)

US crime writer James Patterson is offering £250,000 to independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland. (Worried about the death of the independent bookshops, he has already run a similar scheme in the US, with grants of between £250 and £5,000 available to spend on schemes aimed at encouraging reading among children.  This is what you could call, putting your money where your mouth is.)

Pupils at Hyland School, in Chelmsford, Essex, are being encouraged to read to dogs to help build up their confidence. (Research suggests children, especially those who struggle with their reading, can be nervous and stressed when reading aloud in class.  Dogs are attentive, but they don't judge or correct pronunciation, or grammatical mistakes. According to the Kennel Club, who run a programme called   Bark and Read , overcoming fear and fostering a love of reading can be a first step to improving literacy. One pupil said said: “I think she likes me reading the Guinness Book Of Records as there are a lot of facts about dogs in there." We will be starting a "Read to Laika" session on 1st April.)

Psychologists at the New School for Social Research in New York, have shown that reading literary fiction enhances emotional intelligence. (The fiction found to have this effect was literary fiction, which included books like A Chameleon by Anton Chekhov, The Runner by Don DeLillo, and The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht. The researchers make a distinction between literary fiction and other types of writing. David Comer Kidd said, "Some writing is what you call 'writerly', you fill in the gaps and participate, and some is 'readerly', and you're entertained. We tend to see 'readerly' more in genre fiction like adventure, romance and thrillers, where the author dictates your experience as a reader. Literary [writerly] fiction lets you go into a new environment and you have to find your own way." I wonder if there are any books that have the opposite effect, and who might have read them?)

Dyslexia was originally used to describe someone who had lost the ability to read following a head injury. (It comes from the German word dyslexie, which was made up from Greek dys- "bad, abnormal, difficult" + lexis "word".  Nowadays this type of dyslexia is called deep dyslexia or trauma dyslexia. Someone with dyslexia might have the following issues:- Seeing some letters as backwards or upside down. Seeing text appearing to jump around on a page. The inability to tell the difference between letters and numbers that look similar in shape, such as lower case letters (q and p) & (d and b), and numbers (10 & 01). The numbers (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 9) could be confusing while (8 & 0) would not be, due to being distinctive in shape. Similarly, distinctive lower case letters (i, m, o, v, & w) and upper case (A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, & Y) are typical in shape and therefore not as likely to be confusing. The inability to tell the diffe...

According to a survey carried out by Littlewoods.com, only 33% of parents in the UK read their child a bedtime story. (Some parents said that their children would much rather watch TV, play with toys or computer games, but 13 per cent blamed lack of time for not reading to them and 9 per cent said they were 'too stressed'. I was read to regularly, and it was part of my bedtime routine, in fact three quarters of the parents surveyed said they were read to every night of the week as children.)

According to the website Goodreads the most abandoned book is  The Casual Vacancy by J K Rowling. (The runners up for the not so prestigious award of being really putdownable were:- Fifty Shades of Grey   by EL James Eat Pray Love  by  Elizabeth Gilbert and surprisingly  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo  by S tieg Larsson The top five abandoned "classics" were:- Catch 22 Heller’s satirical work, about the madness of the Second World War, introduced its title into the English language. The 1961 book follows the story of Joseph Yossarian, who flies bomber missions, and is convinced the military is trying to get him killed.  (Over 10m copies sold.) The Lord of the Rings The fantasy novel published in 1954 follows the epic journey of hobbits, dwarves, elves and other assorted creatures to destroy the Ring of Power.  It built a legion of fans and was turned into three blockbuster films.  (Over 150 million sold.) Ulys...

According to a report published by Renaissance Learning, pupils in the UK struggle to understand GCSE exam papers. (Their reading skills are so poor at the end of secondary education due to a lack of time spent practising how to read.  This is so sad.) Source

GCSE exam papers in the UK are aimed at a reading age of 15 years and seven months. (So, if you want to assess your reading skills, try looking at some past exam papers online . Good luck!)

A study by the National Literacy Trust found that, in the UK, children as young as seven are more likely to own a mobile phone than a book. (I would like to think that maybe they have an e-reader installed on the phone, but who am I kidding?)

According to England's chief schools inspector, too many children leave primary school unable to read or write well enough. (The head of Ofsted, Christine Gilbert, said one in five is not at the level expected for English at age 11. Maybe they should make it less of a chore, and a bit more fun. After all since the Factory Acts we've been trying to protect children from exploitation, but now we seem to want to work them to death at school!)

A new library scheme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland means that wherever you are you can borrow a book, simply by using your local library card. (What a fantastic idea! It means that even if you're on holiday you can still use the local library. Of course you have to take any books you've borrowed back to the library you borrowed them from, but even so... I'm tempted to go back to England.)

According to a study by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, 40% of people admit to lying about having read certain books. (So, the next time I tell you I've read The Iliad, you know what to think.)

In the United States, Janet and John were named Alice and Jerry. (Everybody in the UK used to learn to read with Janet and John books. Not only did they learn to read, but they learnt their place in society. Women in the kitchen, baking cakes with their daughter Janet, men at work or in the garden with their son, John. That was it.)