The importance of reading: a view from a virtual school head
How do you encourage disinterested teenage readers to read? No that’s not the first part of a joke awaiting a witty punchline, but a genuine dilemma facing many of us as parents and carers. So last year, we persuaded a number of brave foster carers to take the plunge.....we asked them to read with their ‘stroppy’ teenager, five days a week, for at least 20 minutes a day, for ten weeks and guess what happened? Their average reading ages went up from 9 years, to a staggering 13 years and nine months!!
One child, Jason, who has ADHD and has never enjoyed reading before, actually improved his reading age by 5 years and 3 months, and his carer, Sue, now reports that he is reading voraciously, and independently. He also selected some cookery books as part of his choices (children were able to select from a ware house of titles and once completed, could keep the books and choose more) so was experimenting with baking as well!
Sue told me that it had been good for her too - ‘We carers sometimes need a bit of a nudge’ - and that she had enjoyed spending time with Jason on his own as very often he has to share her time with his younger brother John-Paul who has autism, severe learning and behavioural needs. Just on that point, Sue had recently bought a book called ‘What autistic children would like you to know’ and was steadily working her way through, to arm herself with a few tools....
Make no mistake, these foster parents and families are the unsung heroes in our society, slowly and steadily putting broken lives back together, and giving fostered children and young people hope for a better future. They deserve recognition, valuing and cherishing........
The Fostering Network brings together everyone who is involved in the lives of fostered children and young people to lead, inspire, motivate and support them to make foster care better. To support our work visit www.fostering.net/donate or to donate £10 text FOST37 £10 to 70070.
