Read a Million Words ? reading made interesting for boys
The ‘Read a Million Words’ project is culminating this week after a successful few months.
You might have heard of the scheme or been involved with it yourself.
The project is aimed at helping boys between the ages of eleven and fifteen to improve their literacy.
Basic Skills Cymru came up with the idea for the project after Estyn published a report last year indicating that the standard of boys’ literacy in Wales is poor.
The aim of the project was to provide literature and accompanying activities that would appeal to and engage boys’ minds.
The scheme has been carried out across Wales. In Cardiff, the Library Service were given the task of co-ordinating the project.
The library organised for authors to visit high schools throughout the city. Llanedeyrn and Corpus Christi High Schools had the award winning author Alan Durant visit and Fitzalan High School hosted Bali Rai, author of the ‘Soccer Squad’ series for the day. Both authors talked about the books they have written for young people and read extracts from their work. The boys quizzed the authors about their job and asked for tips on how to make it as a successful writer. The students were given pub-style literature quizzes, with a match the author to the book section; the winners rewarded with incentive prizes such as sweets.
During March over 90 students from Cathays, Llanedeyrn and Mary Immaculate High Schools visited Cardiff’s new central library to work with the comic illustrators Jim Medway and Adam Murphy. The students were shown the different techniques used when making comics and produced their own comic strips during the workshop.
‘Football sessions’ organised in conjunction with the Local Education Authority were held at libraries across the city where the boys were shown football magazines, stories and poems about football and non-fiction football books. The boys made fantasy football teams and ended the session by making a football bookmark.
Three youth clubs in the East of Cardiff took part in a Graffiti Project and their work will soon be displayed in the New Central Library. Watch this space for details.
For more information on the project or the new central library click on the following links:
www.boysliteracywales.co.uk
www.cardiff.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/centrallibrary
