Saturday 29th June marked the end of my ‘Read with Julia’ pilot project at Ledbury Community Hub. If you look at the numbers, it wasn’t a rip-roaring success – but it’s given me plenty of food for thought…
(Not long after filming this little video, I was delighted to welcome 3 children, who had come to the hub to read with me.)
Tripping down memory lane
The next day, on a walk from Ledbury to Eastnor, my husband and I talked through my disappointment at the low turnout for the pilot project. Sean asked me, “When you said, ‘Read with Julia’ could it be that people heard, ‘More school work on a Saturday’?”.
We talked about the diet of books children are being fed in 2024 and reminisced about days gone by. My husband lit up with memories of Roderick the Red, Benjamin the Blue, Gregory the Green and the griffin…
When we returned home, I googled Roderick the Red and showed Sean front covers and pages from the Griffin Pirate Series:
His eyes shone. “Wow! I can almost smell the books!”
“Ah, look! There’s the griffin!”
My 58 year old husband’s enthusiasm was infectious and his final comment made me laugh out loud,
“Who wouldn’t want to be a pirate? Seriously!”.
Even though Sean can’t remember ever owning a book as a child or reading with anyone in the East London council flat he shared with his mum and younger siblings, the books he met in school (and newspaper football reports) opened up the wonders of reading for him.
What about today’s children? What’s opening up the wonders of reading for them?
What’s the score in 2024?
This week, I’ve received some feedback from parents who didn’t come to the sessions. It strongly suggests there’s not a lot of love (nor room) for reading in homes in 2024.
What I’ve been hearing from families in Ledbury chimes with recent research from the BookTrust, ‘although 95% of parents know that reading is important, only 42% of children get a regular bedtime story’ (Children’s reading habits in the early years, BookTrust, 2023):
Let’s be honest, it’s not just reading at home with young children that’s suffering from a lack of joy. There doesn’t seem to be much time and space for savouring story books in schools in 2024 either. It was a contributory factor in my decision to leave schools two years ago. (I wrote more about my journey out of teaching here: https://readwithjulia.com/2022/06/06/slow-how/ )
What’s robbing the joy of reading from children and families ?
The world is now at our fingertips, and a quick click and swipe delivers instant images popping with colour, movement and sound.
What if the appeal of a book is being trumped by tantalising technology?
What if reading with young children at home is less let’s-cuddle-up-with-your-favourite-book and more DO-YOUR-HOMEWORK?
What if children in their early years are swamped by phonics decodables and rarely experience text and pictures working in harmony to ignite their curiosity and fire up their imagination?
This video clip was filmed in the summer of 2022. I am the child’s reception teacher, I am sitting next to him, and I am tuning into his groan and his heart cry, “I hate doing this!”.
Deep down, I am groaning too.
Deep down, I am increasingly dissatisfied with an overwhelming, unquestioning acceptance of scripted phonics schemes, DfE-approved1 ‘research evidence’ and Ofsted demands.
Deep down, I am searching for a better way.
I’ve cut the video short because I’m ashamed of my less than honest response (revealed in the Less is More and Learning to Read is Hard Work videos on my YouTube channel). It’s a painful reminder of how things were before I left teaching in July 2022 – and I don’t think much has changed since.
The ‘Read with Julia’ pilot project was my attempt to find out more about reading at home. I was curious to know if children and families could give me an insight into “what’s going well and what’s not going quite so well” in 2024:
I hoped I could model the sharing of “wonderful picture books” as an enjoyable, relaxed, wholesome activity. Shared reading provides relationship-enriching opportunities to bond through books. When we make time to share a picture book with a child, and welcome their unique responses to the illustrations and text, we create a safe space for the individual child to share their personal thoughts and feelings. These windows into their world deepen our understanding of who they are and what matters to them.
‘I like your reading’
One child came to share a book with me at the first Read with Julia session at Ledbury Community Hub on Saturday 18th May. He and his mum came along after seeing the poster in their school newsletter. He returned with his dad on the second Saturday and attended all four of the sessions. He encouraged two of his friends to come along too.
At the end of the first Saturday, while his mum shared with me their experiences of reading at home, he independently wrote my first review:
His words feel rich in meaning and I am treasuring them.
- DfE – Department for Education ↩︎
Read with Julia 
You write so beautifully Julia. The way you express your thoughts about education today and how children are feeling about reading is poignant. Time and willingness to commit effort and love of books into reading so important for all children.
Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts, Lizzie – and for your encouragement! ❤️