Run a Readathon

Photo - Green Bean Collection - Reading Fans 

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I am a professional writer and editor with a passion for creative writing. With a marketing background, I love playing with language to deliver powerful messages and tell brands’ stories in an engaging way. I am a keen advocate for children’s reading and nurturing a love of books from an early age. Follow me on Twitter @MelBrannlund or email me at [email protected]

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Run a Readathon 
How to Motivate Children to Read for Pleasure whilst Helping Others

As adults, we can all appreciate the sheer bliss of reading a brilliant book. Getting more children to read for pleasure is vital to their wellbeing and development, but one of the fundamental issues is giving them a good reason to do so. 

All too often, reading is tied up with assessments and being part of school work, detracting from nurturing a genuine enjoyment of reading. Giving children more ownership over what they choose to read, but also giving them motivation to want to read, are key to developing a lifelong love of reading.

Books have the power to change people’s lives. When children read for pleasure, the benefits are huge - not only does it help to build confidence and promote good mental health and wellbeing, but it gives them greater social mobility and opens up opportunities for them to succeed throughout life.

UK-based charity, Read for Good, has a vision for all children in the UK to be given the opportunity, space and motivation to develop their own love of reading. By getting schools to run ‘Readathons’, they have devised a way to get children motivated to read more - by helping other children in need.

Every year, 3,000 UK schools are involved in Readathons which help raise money for children staying in hospitals. The idea behind this is that children are given the power to choose what they want to read - from comics to classic literature - which encourages them to get greater enjoyment from reading. Family and friends can then sponsor them per book read or per minute of reading.

All sponsorship money is handled using an easy, safe, online system, so there is no need to go around collecting cash. At the end of the Readathon, a certificate will be sent out along with free book vouchers worth 20% of the total money raised, for the school to spend at Scholastic Book Clubs. New books will also be sent out to the school’s nearest major children’s hospital for children staying there.

By running Readathons, Read for Good now encourages nearly 1 million pupils to love reading across the UK. As a result of their work, all major UK children’s hospitals now receive regular deliveries of brand new books and have storyteller visits, which benefits 150,000 hospitalised children per year.

This wonderful activity is a great way to encourage more children to read for pleasure, whilst helping sick children and giving back to others. Not only does it benefit hospitalised children, but schools that get involved benefit too by receiving book vouchers to use for their own library. Over a 5 year period, Read for Good have given over £1million of free book vouchers to participating schools.

Could your local school get involved in a sponsored Readathon and get more children loving reading? To find out more, visit: https://readforgood.org/ 
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Look out for Melissa's latest articles on Anita Frost's author website, where she'll talk about topics including business and publishing, author news and events, and giving back to communities. You can find her in-depth monthly feature on the News & Media page of the Green Bean Collection website, discussing children's books and reading, early years education, living a greener lifestyle and all things Green Bean!