Coming Soon- Premiership Reading Stars
Successful Scheme to Run at the Academy
15 December 2011
The Academy has secured funding to run the Premiership Reading Stars scheme which has demonstrated a huge success rate across the country since it began in 2003.
Premier League Reading Stars is a partnership between the National Literacy Trust, the Football Foundation and the Premier League which encourages young people and families to get interested in reading.
The scheme sees each of the 20 Barclays Premier League clubs nominating a player as their Reading Star. That player then selects their favourite book – either children’s or adult – to create a 20-strong recommendation list.
The football clubs adopt a library in their local area and that library receives free copies of all 20 titles, giving families the opportunity to take part in library sessions where they can meet their football heroes and a published author.
Here are some of the key figures of the PLRS scheme, which also supports a series of family reading groups across the country:
- Over 16,000 children and parents have participated
- Over 25,000 books have been read
- 111 Premier League players have acted as Reading Stars
- 93% of children who took part in 2009 said they would read more regularly
- 89% of parents in 2009 said they would go to a library more often
Many of the footballers who have taken part in the Premier League Reading Stars project say they not only enjoy reading regularly, but see it as an essential part of family life.
The scheme will be run by Mr O’Leary, an HLTA and football coach at the Academy, and will start in January. If this is a scheme that you and your child are particularly interested in, please contact me (pmcmanus@theacademy.me).
