Our project is titled ‘Love to Read’ because this is the ethos we aim to instil to the group of pupils we work with in the Support for Learning department at Alford Academy. Sharing a love of reading is the focus of the project and to allow us to achieve this pupils are introduced to the Grampian Children’s Book Awards short listed titles where they can access age-appropriate reading material that they can enjoy in a relaxed learning environment. This is achieved by the Network Librarian (N.L) and SFL Teacher reading the novels from the shortlist to the pupils and designing learning materials that are integrated with the reading sessions. This approach demonstrates the pupils’ comprehension of the story and develops their understanding of various literary techniques used by the authors. Activities include pupils taking part in reading aloud extracts of the book, creating a PowerPoint presentation advertising the titles to others in school to encourage them to give the titles a try, as well as participating in group discussions. The focus of discussions include development of the various characters, the plot, predicting what might happen next and the message being conveyed by the authors throughout the stories. Pupils are encouraged to participate and are supported to do so in a constructive and appropriate manner.

The final element of the project is the pupils will be attending the Grampian Children’s Book Award ceremony held in Aberdeen University in May 2016. Here they will have the opportunity to listen to talks given by the short listed authors and meet them during the book signing session.

By developing this wide and diverse range of skills the pupils taking part can use these skills in both their personal and school work which will enable them to confidently integrate with the community and society.

This is a very exciting project that all taking part will have the opportunity to ‘Love to Read’ books by authors they have never tried before.