I’ve written previously about helping reluctant readers and last month a local school asked if I could help out with their own set of unwilling literacy students.
They told me they had a particular problem with …

It Must Be Somewhere
It must be somewhere, it must, it must
It’s not that I’ve lost it – it’s really just
I got it
And then I forgot it
I put it down here, I’m sure I did
It’s not …

Christmas Angels
On Christmas morning at seven o’clock
Our Gran came downstairs and she got a great shock
As the house was so quiet! So peaceful! So still!
And she said ‘Goodness gracious! Are all those kids ill?’
And she …

Giving a child a love for reading is a gift that involves more than a story.  The texture, size and turning pages are parts of the experience of reading, and what are in important part …

You may say at 34 years-old I really should know my phonics, but you know what?  I’m not sure that I do.
I have always supported my son’s schoolwork without really making a big fuss about …

As the winter nights draw in and the sparkly lights go up, conversations with kids start to turn to Christmas and Santa Claus.  If the excitement is building in your house, reading a story about …

We love comics.
You will always find a few in our Tidy Box.
As a parent to a young boy – one pretty reluctant to reading – I think comics are a fabulous way of engaging children …

If in your house, like ours, a cardboard box is a magical plaything, then the appeal of Box of Tricks by Katie Cleminson is immediate.
Box of Tricks begins as Eva is given a very special …

If you’re off somewhere nice this year, or you’re just relaxing in the back garden, what are you going to read?  And what are the kids going to read?
Tidy Books are off on their hols …

There is genuine excitement in our house at the prospect of the 2011 Summer Reading Challenge; Circus Stars.  The seven year old, a veteran of previous challenges such as Space Hop and Quest Seekers,  looks …