Read On. Get On. with City of Readers

Read On. Get On. are determined to equip kids with the reading skills they need to succeed. Liverpool City of Readers is on board.

Liverpool City of Readers is a partnership campaign to transform Liverpool into the UK’s foremost reading city. The aim of CoR is simple: to create a culture of reading for pleasure and develop a generation of readers who will take the power of great books into the future.

Since its start up, CoR has established itself within the city and has celebrated children’s literacy – notably through its successful event Anytime is Storytime which was held in August 2015 and 2016. This event, where over 800 children’s books were given away, saw more than 600 children and carers share the pleasure of reading.

When it was launched in 2015, Anytime is Storytime was included under the flagship of the Read on. Get on. National Campaign which shares parallel visions with CoR’s own, aiming to enable every child to learn and love reading by the age of 11.

Hoping to achieve this, The Read On. Get On. coalition have published a bold new strategy, which sets out how we as a country can ensure our children learn to enjoy reading and leave primary school with the reading skills they need to succeed. Should the problem go unaddressed, research suggests that poor reading skills will continue to have a substantial impact on social inequality and our economy -as estimated cost of £32.1 billion by 2025. That equates to over £900 cost per household in 2020 and £1,500 in 2025.

The new reading strategy outlines 10 steps to achieving the ambitious but achievable campaign target for 96% of children to read well by the age of 11 by 2025. It is built on the following key principles:

• getting children reading is a job for us all
• the work starts at birth
• the importance of enjoyment of reading
• the need to have the highest ambitions for all children

Plans to create a consistent national measure of children’s reading are also outlined in the strategy, as variations in assessment data and gaps in effective measures mean like–for -like comparisons of children’s reading are currently impossible. While the National Curriculum requires schools to support children’s enjoyment of reading, this is not reflected in current assessment.

National Literacy Trust research shows that pupils who enjoy reading ‘very much’ are three times as likely to read above the level expected for their age as those who do not enjoy reading at all.

Liverpool City of Readers is committed to these shared ambitions. COR aims to inspire a new generation of readers that will benefit from better literacy levels and leave Primary School with the essential skills that are to be gained from reading for pleasure that will serve them for life.

Find out more about Liverpool City of Readers.