FOOTBALL READING # 9

This is the ninth in a series of ten blogs about things you can do with children, both to celebrate the new football season and to encourage them to read for pleasure and meaning.

It's the first day of the Premier League. Now, at last, all football is back in our hearts, on our screens and in the newspapers.

Saturday newspapers are the best. They might not have match reports in, but they will have:

* match previews for all the games

* predictions for the season that could be way off the mark or spot on

* news about players agitating to leave football clubs

* true transfer stories - Fabregas, for instance

* columns by ex-footballers

* lists

* charts

* photos

* and lots of lies

If you can afford to go out and buy two or three newspapers and leave them around the house, they'll be a great way of getting children into reading before the big kick off.

If not, try your library, where most have free newspapers for all to read.

Or, go online, where you can read most newspapers articles and speculation for free.

Have a good day and a great season. I hope your team does well... unless you're playing Leeds United, in which case - no offence - but I hope you lose.

FOOTBALL READING # 8

This is the eighth of ten blogs about finding ways to encourage children to read, using the power of football. All to celebrate the new football season. Hurray!

We all do it.

Who do you think is going to win the match today?

Who's going to score for this team or that team?

Which Premier League manager is going to get sacked first?

Children enjoy doing it as much as adults. Predictions! And that makes it a powerful tool to encourage them to read more.

Here's how?

Why not make a list of ten things you and a child would like to predict - such as the results or scores or matches, goalscorers, attendances, sending offs? Decide together what you are going to predict. Every correct prediction gains the person who made it one point.

Then suggest that everyone taking part has a look on the internet or in newspapers to help them make their choices.

Reading about the game can help hugely. You can find out the form of the teams in question, who is injured and other factors.

The BBC football website is good for this. They do a preview on each game, helping you work out who is playing and who is not and what teams' recent form is.

Also, club websites can be helpful to give you an idea of which team is feeling the more confident.

Maybe offer a prize or incentive if your child beats you. maybe involve other family members, friends or children.

Worth a try.

Rugby World Cup

There is less than a month to go until the Rugby World Cup kicks off. And I, like millions, am really looking forward to it.

I watched the 2003 final in the attic of our house, with my daughter on my knee. She was two weeks old and weighed less than a rugby ball at the time. I can't remember how I celebrated that winning kick, but I imagine I was quite restrained.

I am even more excited about the 2011 World Cup because I'm going to be doing a lot of work to use the interest in rugby to promote reading to young people across the UK.

This is what's going on:

* I have written a toolkit of rugby related literacy ideas for the National Literacy Trust. It is free. Available here.

* I will be surveying books, magazines, newspapers and websites for the best rugby reading from now until the end of the tournament, tweeting about everything I find at @worldcupreader. Please follow me if you're interested.

* I am touring schools and book festivals to play my Rugby Reading Game (rugby reading quiz followed by a goal kicking competition) in September and October. Most events re in schools, but the public events include:

Bath Children Book Festival - 24 september

Ilkley Literature Festival - 2 October

Beverley Literature Fesitval - 8 October

Manchester Literature Festival - 16 October

* and, my new rugby book Scrum! - details here - is out in October, published by Barrington Stoke.

If anyone has anything else going on based on reading and writing about the world cup, please let me know.

FOOTBALL READING # 7

This is the seventh in a series of ten blogs about using a child's love of football to encourage them to enjoy reading more.

Some children prefer to play football than read books.

Let's face it.

In fact, when I was a child - and some - I played football for about ten to fifteen hours a week. More in the holidays. Much more time than I spent reading.

Children play football because they like it and because they want to get better at it.

Today's blog is to do with books about how to play football.

I go into a lot of libraries. I must have visited at least 500 in the UK to speak about my books. Maybe more. In every one I get some football books off the shelves to show to the children I speak to. Biographies. Fiction. Histories. And... books on how to play.

Most libraries have at least three, often ten or more, of these books. They can be found in the children's sport section. They are simple and clear with lots of images of:

* how to be a better player

* how to be fit for football

* tactics on defending, attacking, etc.

* how to do tricks

The books are often full of exercises and drills that could help a child to vastly improve their skills.

So why not get one of the books out and go to do some of the drills with your child - and their friends? It could be a good way of imporving their football skills.

Then give them the book that evening to see if they want to read some more tips about what you could do the next day.

There are some great books. Usbourne do some great ones in particular.

Good luck.

FOOTBALL READING # 6

TWITTER PLAYERS

This is the sixth in a series of ten blogs about using the new football season to encourage your children to read.

Twitter is a great way to read about football.

Yes, each chunk of reading is under 140 characters long, but Twitter often spurs you on to read articles or more Tweets.

Today's idea is to encourage your children to follow footballers on Twitter. Do any of their favourite team's players Tweet?

You can find out intersting things like:

* big football stories before they make it into the mainstream media

* what the player things about transfer rumours

* how they feel before the game - and after

* what they are interested in: what newspapers and books they read, what bands they like

* arguments they are having with journalists

* and a lot more

You can follow Tweeting Players at http://www.twitter.com/ or via smart phone devices.

Bear in mind that some footballers swear and say controversial things that you might not want younger (or even older) children to read about. To solve this you could choose footballers who are cleaner - or edit out any of the more risque tweets.

Here are some players you can follow:

@rioferdy5 - Rio Ferdinand - lots of great stuff about being a player and family life, with occassional olitical remarks, largely clean

@WayneRooney - passionate remarks, occassionally includes something you'd not want kids to read, but worth editing

@JackWilshire - clean remarks about the football world

@RobbieSavage8 - edgy stuff with occassional rewtweets of abuse he's had, so watch it

You can search for more players online, narrowing to players from your favourite team.

With thanks to @DanFreedman99 for advice in putting this list together. Dan writes the Jamie Johnson football books, that are hugely popular with children. If you follow him on Twitter too, you can see a list of several players he recommends if you look back a couple of days on his Twitter feed.

This might be something that won't last forever, so have a go. Many football teams are banning their players from Tweeting. I am a Leeds fan and used to follow seven or eight Leeds players. Now that's gone, because they have been banned. One of our players - Davide Somma - tweeted about his serious injury before the club had released the information, so all the players were stopped.

It's a shame I was enjoying it.

FOOTBALL READING # 5

This is the fifth in a series of ten blogs about using the new football season to inspire children to read more for pleasure.

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

This week is one of the best weeks in the year for reading about football in the newspapers.

These are some of the things you can expect to read about in the next six days:

* outrageous transfer speculation about major players going to major clubs

* players making ridiculous claims about how well they are going to do this season

* players doing 'exclusive' interviews to try and get a move from one club to another

* a manager of a high-profile club resigning 48 hours before the season starts

* so-called experts making predictions about who is going to win what and who is going to get relegated (worth keeping these to see how they do)

* and, unless I am very much mistaken, on Thursday there will be a loud howl for Fabio Capello to be sacked.

This is just the start. There will also be pull outs and previews in most of the papers, including lists and statistics and all sorts of other nonsense.

EXPENSIVE

Newspapers are not free, though. You might not be able to afford to buy a newspaper every day. So here are some tips on reading newspapers for free.

1. go to the public library, where they are free

2. get the Metro newspaper or other free papers (if you have them in your area)

3. read newspapers online - most are free (if you have internet access... and if not, they have that at the library too)

4. find one on a train or a bus that someone has left behind

5. stand in a supermaket for an hour, reading all the papers

I hope you have a good time reading the papers.

FOOTBALL READING #4

This is the fourth in a set of ten tips on how to encourage children to get into reading through their love of football - to celebrate the new season.

Fantasy Football could be the way to get your children into reading more about football. It might encourage them to read more in newspapers and online in particular.

If you don't know what it is, Fantasy Football is a game you can play in newspapers and on some websites, where you pick a team using all the players in the Premier League.

Then, as the season unfolds, you gain or lose points from your players' performances: how many goals they score, or their team concedes; if they set up a goal or get sent off.

You can transfer players throughout the season.

Most people play it in leagues, pitting their football expertise against friends and workmates.

So why not do it with your kids? Or even with their friends and other parents?

It's fun and it makes Match of the Day more interesting.

The reading bit is... to make sure you know who the best players are to sign for your team or to make sure you know who is injured or on international duty, you need to read match previews and reports in the newspapers or online.

If you don't read up on it, you lose.

That's the idea.

You can set up a league on various websites. The most popular are the Daily Telegraph and the Sun, but there are several more to choose from.

To read the newspapers, if you can;t afford to buy a paper every day, try the newspapers websites, like the Mirror. Or go to the library where you can read newspapers for free.

And if you win a national competition, you can win LOTS of money. But you probably won't...

FOOTBALL READING # 3

This is the third of ten blogs about using the excitement around the forthcoming football season to encourage children to read about the game in books, newpapers, online and - today - in magazines.

One per day in the run up to the Premier League kick off.

If you're going to pay the £2.50 to £4.50 the football magazines cost, today might be the best day to do it.

As you can see, they are full of previews about the season. In fact, a lot of them have free wall charts and supplements, so you will get better value for money.

These are the main magazines available in the UK:

Match - a great mixture of pictures and short text, largely about the Premier League. Great for reluctant readers.

Match of the Day - a lot like Match, but even more popular with children. Great content for reluctant readers.

Kick - as above, but more posters than text.

FourFourTwo - glossy football magazine aimed at teenagers and adults. Great articles and fancy photography.

World Soccer - about football across the world. Not good for a struggling reader. Quite political. Brilliant for authors writing about the game.

WSC - stands for When Saturday Comes is like Private Eye for football fans. Really good and interesting. Again not one for reluctant readers or under 13s.

The above are all available in most newsagents and WMSmiths.

You can also get club magazines about some of the biggeer teams like Liverpool, Chelsea and Leeds.

And don't forget match day programmes, available if you're attending a game. They cost between £1 and £4.

Also, fanzines, written by fans for fans can be bought around the grounds and in city centres. But beware some fanzines if you're giving them to your kids and you want to protect them from swearing and malice.

Happy reading!

FOOTBALL READING # 2

This is the second of ten blogs about reading football - one a day in the run up to the launch of the 2011-2012 Premier League football season.

The idea is to use these ideas to encourage children to get into reading through football.

One of the best ways of getitng your children into reading is by reading to them. Or with them.

I read with my daughter now, although she usually prefers to read to herself.

But sometimes it is still nice for us to read together. And the run up to the football season is a good time to do this, because there is a common goal (excuse the pun): your excitement about the coming football.

Can you find a book in the public library, a book shop, WHSmith or even one from home that you could read together?

Maybe a short novel by someone like me or Helena Pielichaty or David Bedford. We all write books that you could read for quarter of an hour each night for a week. (There is a longer list of authors you could try on the previous blog post.)

Maybe a biography of a favourite player.

A football fact book or quiz book.

One of the many football poem collections.

It is a nice habit to get into, especially easy if you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to have a bit less work on in the summer and bed times are a little later.

The National Literacy Trust have done lots of research (www.literacytrust.org.uk) that proves reading with your child even after the age they can read for themselves is likely to make them do better at school, enjoy reading more, be happier and be closer to their parents.

Borrow or buy a book now and read it in the run up to the football season.

FOOTBALL READING # 1

This is the first of ten short blogs - one a day - in the run up to the Premier League football season that kicks off on Saturday 13th August.

Each blog will focus on something you can with your children to get you all into reading through football.

DAY ONE

Over the next ten days I'll be talking about great football reading in magazines, online, books and in newspapers. Stuff that will get you in the mood for the football season - and that will get you in the mood for reading all year round too.

There is one place you can get access to all the above kinds of reading. For free.

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Here's a list of the football reading you can find in the library:

* biographies of players (Biography)

* access to thousands of football websites: from BBC Sport to your favourite team (Online)

* books on how to play football (Sport, or Junior Sport)

* adult football stories, like The Damned United and Football Factory (Fiction)

* free newspapers - national and local (usually in the Reference section)

* books about football teams and history (Sport)

* magazines - some libraries have copies of Match, Match of the Day and FourFourTwo

* football stories by authors like Helena Pielichaty, Dan Freedman, Bali Rai, Narinder Dhami, Michael Coleman, David Bedford, Alan Gibbons, Mal Peet, and, er... TOM PALMER (in Children's Fiction)

I do loads of football reading in the library and it costs me nothing.

If you need advice in the library ask a librarian. They want to help. Tell them I sent you!

Part two of this blog will be posted tomorrow. Thanks for reading.