Research shows that reading for just 10 minutes a day can have a massive impact on a child’s education, helping them to achieve good exam results and equip them with skills to thrive in the adult world.
To put the emphasis back on reading, Achievement for All, has developed a campaign called One Million Minutes, aimed at providing teachers and parents with a fun and engaging way to encourage primary school children to read.
The competition challenges primary schools to read for as many minutes as they can in just one week.
The class that manages to read for the most amount of minutes and top the leaderboard by the end of the week, wins the challenge and is presented with a prize of a brand new reading corner and books worth more than £1,000, courtesy of Peters Books & Furniture.
We are currently running a regional competition. So far, there have been eight legs and we have two legs left to complete (in Devon and Northamptonshire & Milton Keynes in June).
However, due to the success of the regional legs, we are in the process of developing a national competition for all primary schools in England and Wales.
It will be held in November and teachers will be able to register their entire school to ensure as many children as possible benefit from the campaign. Of course, there will also be an added incentive to win some fabulous prizes.
The challenge has been a powerful way for teachers and parents to motivate children to read. So far almost 30,000 children have taken part in the competition, reading for a combined total of 3,172,266 minutes.
We’ve had great feedback from teachers who say the challenge has inspired even the most reluctant of readers to pick up a book and really enjoy reading. And that’s not just during the challenge, but still now.
- Professor Sonia Blandford, CEO and founder of Achievement for All. Achievement for All is one of a coalition of charities leading the Read On. Get On. campaign to get every child reading well by the age of 11 by 2025.
Further information
- For more information on One Million Minutes, visit https://millionminutes.afaeducation.org/
- For details about Read on. Get On, go to http://readongeton.org.uk/