The club that creates reading millionaires!

Buster’s Book Club is making reading fun

Nearly 20,000 children and families in Kent, Medway, Bexley, Bromley and Sussex have been using the successful reading reward scheme Buster’s Book Club in 2020-21 in what has proved to be a very different and challenging year!

In spite of all the challenges – the bubbles; isolating; class/school closures – the pupils will have read a combined total of over 4 million minutes this academic year which is a fantastic achievement!

If your school wants to join in the fun, we are now signing up schools for the new academic year 2021-22 and we would love to have your pupils join us.

The initiative is designed to make reading fun and encourages children to read what they enjoy (including comics; magazines; non-fiction titles, recipe books etc – whatever they choose!) outside of the classroom environment. There are year group reading minutes targets to give pupils something to aim for but reaching your ‘target’ is less important than improving week to week. It doesn’t matter if a child reads 100 minutes or five minutes they will all be contributing to their class and school success. They record their reading minutes on a bookmark, which is ‘signed off’ by a parent/carer/older sibling providing another opportunity to engage families in the child’s reading journey.

Classes are encouraged to read a little bit more each week and increase their overall class reading minutes total. In schools there is recognition for a Star Reader in each class every week and an overall school Reading Class of the Week as well as Bronze, Silver and Gold badges available. Awards are based on effort and improvement as well as reading minute totals and schools can set their own in-house challenges such as the most unusual  (but safe!) place to read at home.

There are regular inter-school, district and county challenges with prizes including book bundles; class resources such as mapping games and STEM building sets; school visits by storytellers, authors or celebrities and visits by organisations such as Creepy Claws, Kickstart Sports, Dot Kids and occasionally a visit from Buster Bug himself! The competitive element has been shown to motivate many children – and teachers – and can help foster peer-to-peer support and encouragement across the class. Plus all the pupils reading together can become Reading Millionaires!

Giving awards and prizes for reading for enjoyment, gives schools fantastic success stories to celebrate in assembly as well as in newsletters to parents/carers – ramping up the motivation for the pupils to read even more.

Why is reading at home important for 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.” 

In addition, this has been a tough 16 months and research by the Education Policy Institute and Renaissance Learning in their ‘Understanding Progress in the 2020 – 2021 Academic Year’ report for the Department for Education reveals that for reading, the learning loss by the end of the spring term was an average of 2.2 months for primary pupils. 

To find out more, sign up and join the fun, or renew for Buster’s Book Club, please contact Kay Devine at kdevine@thekmgroup.co.uk or complete the form below.