Educational projects across Doncaster during lockdown to promote a love of reading

Doncaster Stories is a ten year campaign from the National Literacy Trust, and is being run in partnership with the Doncaster Opportunity Area.

Hannah Riley, campaign officer for Doncaster Stories, explained: “By encouraging a love of reading, we’re helping the children of Doncaster improve their literacy levels and achieve their full potential.”

This is a community-driven campaign, so in normal times it involves a lot of face-to-fa ce contact and a lot of work on the ground. For instance, the next project in the pipeline was supposed to be some 'Walk and Talk' trails around the town, but o bviously due to the pandemic this has been put on hold for the foreseeable future. Hannah continued: "We've come up with a few mitigating plans in the mean time so that we can support families during these difficult times.

“In the last few days we set up a Family Zone which works as a one-stop shop to support parents with their child's learning during the school closures.

“Over the next days, weeks and months we will be updating this as often as we can with new and useful content for parents.

“Split up by age group, you will find ideas and guidance for simple activities that will engage your children at home, while also benefiting their reading, writing and language development.

“You'll be able to access free reading and writing resources, audiobooks, videos, competitions and reading challenges. Every resource is available for free, although to access some you may need to create a free account.

“In the next couple of days, we should have a Facebook Page and a YouTube channel setup for localised tailored content. Both pages will include resources specifically for Doncaster families .”

The campaign delivers an array of fun, exciting and educational projects across the town to promote a love of reading – inc luding World Book Day activity at Keepmoat Stadium, a creative writing Christmas competition, and book donations to schools affected by the floods last November.

Visit the website: www.doncasterstories.org.uk.