How Euro 2012 can inspire your reluctant readers

When the author soccer

Tom Palmer

was young, I thought I hated reading - all chronic and football magazines did not. Now how major sports tournaments can be used to change attitudes toward reading for life

I worked with the National Literacy Trust to develop resources for teachers to use when Euro 2012. It aims to capitalize on children's interest in football to encourage them to read for pleasure.

read some research six months ago who argued that during major sporting tournaments, falling academic performance. It was produced by the Universities of Bristol and Oxford. You can read more about this in my blog.

But what if we had to find a way to improve educational outcomes of a sporting event? Instead of seeing it as a threat to literacy, how you make an opportunity. How do we do it? The answer - not rocket science - it is that we find ideas to inspire children to love reading through your love for the sport. This is what I am working with the Foundation for the National Literacy and share with the Guardian Teacher Network.

Firstly, we have developed a toolkit of ideas for activities, exhibitions and reading groups around the Euro 2012. Simple systems that make children look in newspapers, magazines, books and websites. For example, a screen Euro 2012 updated daily with new reading materials by a group of football fans children, a match report noon to read the group's ideas to the clients at school, I could talk sports, reading, playing a football game based on the highly competitive contest and a throbbing pain.

am also writing a story of suspense twenty episodes daily, early morning, from the previous day's events at the Euro 2012. Fiction live take five minutes to read every day. The first installment can be read here.

wrote a letter that can be sent to parents to suggest ways in which families can help their children to read for pleasure during major sporting tournaments this summer.

And throughout the tournament children can read a blog of a writer of football (that's me) talks about the tournament, the more I read, which include overviews, features, profiles, players, controversies, links to websites, new books and magazines of recent articles. See also The Guardian Euro 2012 website.

But it is not only short-term, not just for the duration of Euro 2012. We use it to help children's attitudes change towards reading. Because life.

When I was young, I hated reading. Or, that's what I said. But, thinking about it - and with a little help from my mother - I read a lot. Game drives and magazines, every Thursday. Newspapers in football every weekend. Match day programs all attended football matches (when it was still affordable). Books on my favorite team and players. Because I do not read fiction told me he hated reading. And so, I avoided books. I felt comfortable in libraries and bookstores. Reading was beyond me. That was my story house.

• My mother encouraged me in the same way they are now trying to encourage kids when I visit schools. She made me see that I was a reader.
• Armed with the idea that it might be a reader, I grew in confidence. I started trying to book the war. I was interested in the war. And travel books. I loved dream of going abroad. I trusted. Confidence but not read-only. I had confidence in the rest of my life. The reading you have done for me. It changed everything.

. Tom Palmer wrote 14 novels for Puffin football. His series include Football Academy, and the squadron Foul Play. His new book - Black Op - in Poland the week before Euro 2012. Reading Football runs his game in schools and libraries throughout the United Kingdom. Find out more about www.tompalmer.co.uk.

teacher tutor Resources Network
toolbox of ideas for activities, exhibitions and reading groups around the Euro 2012

Find best price for : --Puffin----Palmer----Guardian----Euro----Trust----Literacy----National--