I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading

All my life I have loved books and I was very fortunate that both my parents are avid readers themselves so modelled what a love of reading looks like from an early age. One of my favourite Christmas presents each year were the book tokens we were given by an Aunt which would mean the joy of book shop visits, perusing the shelves of beautiful new books and selecting the perfect new tomes for our personal libraries back home.

We have a selection of Oxford Reading
Tree books as well as levels of
books for all ages to enjoy. 

Although I loved books from before I could say the word books, I wasn’t such a fan of learning to read. My older sister is a bright cookie and she picked up learning to read fairly quickly. For me it was a bit of a battle, I just wanted the story without having to spend time learning to sound out each word. But as with all things, I got there eventually just in my own time.  And my younger sister was never a big reader… until, that is,  she found that one book that made you fall in love with reading by what the words make you see, feel and experience all from where you are curled up in a chair. For my sister, that one book was Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian (on my list of must-reads for 10-12 year olds).

Which Julia Donaldson fans can recognise this book?

Reading is incredibly important to us at The Honeycomb Hub which is why we have spent a lot of our donations on our book corner, filled with books for all ages, including a shelf for parents where you can find books ranging from baby names, training a teenager, baby food recipes and mindfulness. We have puzzle books and novels for older children (who may not want to play in Tiny Town as long as their younger siblings), hard-page books for little ones (though we understand that occasionally a page may get accidentally torn and keep a stack of tape at the ready just in case), a series for beginning readers and a whole host of picture books. Our storytelling chair was great fun to design and have built  and we also have a resident story wizard (you can tell this person by their hat, even if their features may change – they are a wizard after all) who reads different stories for free at 11am each day.

Books also feature as the themes in many of our children’s activity clubs (so far we have featured The Gruffalo & Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Alfie’s Feet by Shirley Hughes) and Harry Potter will be the inspiration for many of our STEM classes this term.

To further inspire readers and writers we have taken our love of books and writing to the next level in our collaboration with the authors Alexandra Orford and Dabilo Mokobi of Kalahwood forming the Honeycomb Hub-Kalahwood Writing Collective. Through this we hope to make reading, and especially writing, accessible for everyone and to be a gateway for authors of any age to get into writing and gain the knowledge they need to publish. Through our collective we now have a wider range of groups and clubs at the Honeycomb Hub:

-The Writers Collective: A monthly writing group for adults aged 16+ to meet, write, share thoughts and ideas and have your questions answered by published authors. Our first meeting was great fun with much hilarity from the short writing tasks, sharing views on publishing and creating our own writing goals whether they be to meet up with another group member to discuss setting up a blog or to flesh out a potential character. We meet the third Thursday of every month at 6:30pm and our next meeting is 15^th February. P50 includes a piece of cake, tea/ coffee and a jotter to write in.

-Teenage Writers Collective: A weekly session to give young authors a chance to write and have their questions answered by established, published authors willing to share their time and knowledge with the next generation. This session is free and runs every Thursday from 5pm in the Hub for 12-16 year olds.

-Monthly book group: Every first Thursday of the month (our first meeting will be Thursday 2^nd February, 6:30pm) Rather than all reading the same book it is a chance to share good books we have read and we will encourage one member each month to give a short chat about an author / book they would like to recommend. P50 include a piece of cake, tea / coffee and access to the book groups lending library. (If anyone has any books they would like to donate to this we would be hugely appreciative.)

-Children’s Writing Clubs: These weekly groups start 5^th February and are run as a term of 8 sessions where each week we cover writing, illustrating, editing and finally publishing a book and the different ways in which this can be done. Mondays 2pm for 5-7 years olds and 3pm for 8-12 year olds. Booking essential, price to be confirmed. 

Image from 

http://www.readbrightly.com/how-to-make-zine/

Read here to find out more about making zines.  

-Zine Club – this starts this Friday at 2pm where we making zines, which are homemade publications. There are no set-in-stone rules for making zines and they can be about anything you are interested in which make them a great vehicle for self-expression. All ages and abilities welcome whether your zine is an opportunity for you to practise mark making, drawing your favourite vehicles, writing a comic strip or create an informative zine on the upcoming Winter Olympics. P50 a session, materials provided.

A selection of some of our books
for parents. 

As a teacher, I have loved teaching reading and writing but now that my own son has started school I am finding I need a different approach when working on reading and writing with my own child. We all need inspiration sometimes and I am lucky to have a go-to Literacy Guru, who I was fortunate enough to teach alongside in Reading. This creative teacher is the wonderful Ingrid Burton from Thameside Primary School and I asked her to write her top tips for reading with your child, which you can read below. 

Just a couple of last words from me.  I wanted to let you know the author of the title quote

The first in the series
by Estelle Ryan

was the remarkable Jane Austen. Another fabulous quote declaring the importance of reading is from the esteemed Albert Einstein: “If you want your child to be brilliant, read them fairy tales. If you want your child to be a genius read them more fairy tales.”

And finally, for those of you looking for a new read I wanted to recommend my favourite author of the moment: Estelle Ryan. Her heroine, Genevieve Lenard, is a lady with high functioning autism, she is one of the top non-verbal communicators in the world and ends up solving various crimes linked to art with a healthy dash of Mozart thrown in. A fantastic set of books with 11 in the series so far and I am eagerly anticipating the 12th book due to be released in February!

Happy Reading!

Reading with your child

Reading is fundamental to the development of children. There is much research that shows strong links between good reading skills from an early age and future success in life. According to research from the National Literacy Trust, young people who read outside class were 13 times more likely to read above the expected level for their age! 

As parents we play a vital role in our child’s reading development. By reading with your child you are helping to; stimulate their imagination, develop their language skills and improve their comprehension. So how can we best support our child’s reading development? 

Here are my top tips:

Peace and quiet: we all know life is busy and finding quiet time can be difficult but it is vital if you are listening to your child read to try and find a quiet, comfortable place away from as many distractions as possible.

Talk around the text: ask your child questions about the story and encourage them to answer ‘find it’ questions - questions that help to develop their literal understanding of a text e.g. what colour was the dog? And ‘prove it’ questions – questions which develop a deeper understanding of what is being read e.g. Why was the boy sad?

Share: don’t be afraid to offer your own ideas too, discuss your thoughts, likes/dislikes about the story or indeed something that puzzles you. Children enjoy talking about the books they are reading so engage in discussion, share an interesting fact or explore a word together.

Strategies: encourage your child to use a range of strategies to support them when reading new words e.g. segmenting words using their phonic skills, using the initial sound, using clues within the sentence/story or reading ahead and coming back to the word.

Variety: not all reading is in books! We are surrounded by print that communicates a message, why not point out signs and labels and encourage your child to read them? Provide them with a range of reading material e.g. a child friendly newspaper such as First News, fiction, non-fiction books, poetry, a comic or instructions on how to play a game.

Praise and encouragement: probably the most important key to success is praise and encouragement -offer lots of it!

Finally, and probably the most difficult part of reading with your child, is to remain CALM! I know from experience as a parent just how difficult it can be when they stumble over the same word time and time again or they struggle to find the answer that you think is the most obvious thing on the page. Take a deep breath, smile, encourage and ENJOY!

As Frederick Douglass said, “once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”