The club that creates reading millionaires!

Buster’s Book Club is making reading cool

More than 34,000 children and families in Kent, Medway, Bexley, Bromley, Sussex and East Anglia have been using the successful reading reward scheme Buster’s Book Club in 2019. The KM Charity Team are now accepting applications from schools wishing to sign up for 2020.

The initiative is designed to make reading cool and sets children an individual home reading target depending on their year group. Children are then set a series of challenges throughout the year – these include inter-class and inter-school events, all of which culminate with an annual record attempt. The scheme is proving very effective at involving parents and engaging with pupils, particularly boys.

Prizes for the inter-school challenges include a visit by a storyteller, a hamper of books or free entry tickets to locations such as Leeds Castle in Kent or Drusillas in Sussex.

There is a small charge per class for schools signing up to Buster’s Book Club – to find out more complete the enquiry form below. You will be automatically emailed the information brochure.

Why is reading at home important for primary school pupils?

According to research by the National Literacy Trust:

“Overall, nearly 4 in 10 (37.5%) of those who never read outside class read below the level expected for their age.”

“Children and young people who read below the expected level for their age are four times as likely to say that they rarely or never read outside class (38.6%) compared with those who read above the level expected for their age (9.9%).”

“There are also clear relationships between children’s and young people’s reading skills and the length of time they read…..nearly nine times as many young people who read above the expected level for their age read for longer than one hour compared with young people who read below the expected level. Conversely, young people who read below the expected level for their age are three times as likely to say that they read for up to 10 minutes compared with young people who read above the expected level.” 

How does Buster’s Book Club work?

Buster’s Book Club is an engagement tool that excites children to read more through a triple challenge. Most reading support is delivered on an individual basis but our reading reward scheme issues prizes on the basis of class effort. This means that we generate significant peer to peer encouragement as everyone in the class needs to make an effort for a class to win.

Every week the Reading Class of the Week trophy is presented to the class top or most improved for reading – that is usually sufficient to encourage home reading – particularly with boys who seem to really respond to the competitive nature of the challenges.

We then ramp up the excitement – once a month all the classes in the school are competing against neighbouring schools and the class top or most improved in the district win tickets to a leisure attraction such as castles, nature reserves, swim vouchers or ice skating. This is repeated monthly.

Super challenges are also staged with the class top or most improved for reading in the county winning a visit from a celebrity storyteller or professional storyteller.

And the final part of the triple challenge is where all the children involved in the region collectively have to aim to read more than one million minutes over the course of the academic year.

What the above gives school staff is a regular drip feed of exciting narrative to talk about in assemblies and in newsletters home to parents – all proven to encourage children to read more. KM Charity Team regularly provide school staff with suggested text or narrative and also supply newsletters for children’s book bags (plus e-versions for ParentMail) – all reinforced with press stories through our media partners.