The National Literacy Trust launches its Love Football toolkit.
This summer South Africa will host the World Cup finals and the world will, for a few weeks, be even more obsessed with football than it already is.
Love it or hate it, football is a huge draw. Advertisers and media companies spend billions using the World Cup to get their message across.
The National Literacy Trust doesn't have billions to spend to get its message across but it does have Love Football: Love Reading.
Their message is that if you find the right things, whether they are books, magazines, newspapers or websites, you can read them. For pleasure.
The Love Football: Love Reading toolkit is full of great ideas that will encourage reading for pleasure. Some of them need resources and time, some don’t.
It has been written for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 teachers, school librarians, children’s public librarians, Playing for Success centres and reader development workers: for anyone whose role it is to promote literacy.
And, if you’re working outside of this age range, perhaps doing some essential work such as involving parents, it won’t take much work from you to adapt this content and make it suitable.
This guide has been written for everyone, football lovers and haters alike. But there’s no getting away from the fact that it is harder to deliver the ideas suggested in this guide if you don’t know much about football. We’d like to suggest three ways to help you overcome this:
- Put together a small group of football fans from among your students or users to form a World Cup reading committee: they can help you decide how best to promote reading through football.
- Employ one or more volunteer World Cup librarians who can work in the library during the tournament and help you promote reading through football.
- Ask a colleague who does like football to join you in the planning, or, failing that, a friend or the parents of the children you work with.
Click here to download the Love Football: Love Reading toolkit
Click here for further information on the National Literacy Trust
