Why reading is so important for children
Reading is one of the indicators of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income.
Designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, World Book Day is marked in over 100 countries around the globe. You can follow World Book Day they have lots of resources and ideas for use at school and home:
For World Book Day this year we have been thinking about the benefits of books. Books open our imagination and allow us to travel to another world as well as providing education, which in turn provides children with choices on how they wish to live their lives.
During Covid-19 access to books have been more important than ever to keep everyone learning and to keep some of us company. Although some people have reported they have found it difficult to read a book during this time.
Ideas for World Book Day
We have pulled together a few ideas for World Book Day to help you explore and ramp up your creativity and imagination.
• Try a book in another language or dialect. World Book Day have their first Welsh language title in this year’s £1 book offerings.
• Check out out your local library as they often have on-line events and you can reserve books on-line until the time comes when you can visit and choose your own books in person.
• Have a look at our ‘Home Learning Resources 2021’ resource pack on our website. On page 18 you will find out how to access lots of free books online. https://www.stevesinnottfoundation.org.uk/resources
• Get involved with the Open Library, the aim is to create a page for every book ever published to create an online library, like Wikipedia for books.
Book Clubs
Many people report that belonging to a book club really motivates them to read regularly as well as being able to connect with people all over the world. Here’s a few that we have been exploring.
• Read quietly, with others online in over 100 cities. Follow the Facebook group for author events and you might even be encouraged to start your own local book club. It’s free too.
• A group for readers of translated fiction. Fortnightly on-line calls with opportunities to meet the authors and translators. They only publish books that can be translated in 200 pages and takes the same time to read as it takes to watch a film.
• Members can choose 2 books each month which are based on the theme of strong women. On-line discussion is available each month.
• Sign up to receive a mystery book through the post each month on a topical theme, which members choose through voting. There are on-line discussions groups and monthly meet-ups.
• A book club for non-fiction books that meets twice monthly and offers meet-ups with authors and community connections.
• You can support the provision of books globally by signing up to the reverse book club.
Independent Book Shops
We have also been enjoying browsing some independent book shops. Did you know that some of the online book conglomerates use algorithms to suggest books and there are loads of wonderful books out there but they might never get suggested in the mainstream. We are missing out on some wonderful books as we are discouraged from exploring by the “suggested for you” algorithms.
Here is our pick of independent book shops that you might like to try:
Useful Resources
You can find great resources on these websites:
Thank you, we hope you have enjoyed this post and have found some useful idea and resources to further your enjoyment of books.
Steve Sinnott Foundation • March 2, 2021
On Friday evening ( 29 May, 7.00 pm The Actors Church Covent Garden) we had the pleasure of listening to this very special concert, bringing together the Choir of King's College London and the Princeton High School Orchestra in a celebration of international friendship, collaboration, and shared values. This project reflects a commitment to peace, sustainability, equality, and cultural exchange, uniting young musicians from the United Kingdom and the United States through the universal language of music.
How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity.
‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here
