E-book come top in school reading competition
By Judith Burns
By Judith Burns
BBC News education reporter
Nearly half the titles
read by children in a new national schools reading competition were read
online, says literacy charity Booktrust.
Read for My School
2013 aimed to boost the numbers of primary pupils in England reading for
pleasure.
Almost 100,000 nine to
11-year-olds, from 3,600 schools signed up.
"Children were
sitting in their rooms using their iPads and Xboxes to read rather than for
games," said Alison Keeley of Booktrust.
Between them, the
children who took part read more than 400,000 books. Some 49% of these were
read online from a free digital library of 46 titles from Penguin, Dorling
Kindersley and Pearson.
A poll of their
teachers suggested the e-library was particularly popular among boys and
less-proficient readers.
"I think boys and
poorer readers just prefer reading online. It's about making it different and
more exciting, a different way to use their Xbox or iPad.
"The competition
website allowed us to tell what format they were reading on. Some children were
particularly motivated by the competition element", said Ms Keeley.
Comments from teachers
suggested that suddenly the keenest readers "had their standing in class
transformed", she added.
The competition,
organised by Booktrust and The Pearson Foundation with support from the
Department for Education, ran from January to March 2013.
Children had to log
the books they read on the competition website and answer questions to prove
that they had not just flicked through the pages.
They could choose from
the 46 titles in the e-library or read any title they fancied in traditional
book form as long as it fitted into one of eight competition categories.
The idea was to broaden
children's reading tastes as they had to read at least one book from each
category, ranging from "Laugh out Loud" funny reads to "Keep it
Real" factual books and including history, animal stories , sci-fi,
mystery and thrillers.
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