Reading Connects handbook - National Literacy Trust

Peer-to-peer recommendationResearch shows that young people are most likelyto identify role models from their immediate socialenvironment. In addition to this, following familyinfluences, young people cite peers as their mostimportant role models (Bricheno and Thornton,2007). Therefore, we need to make the most of the‘peer factor’.There are a number of ways to encourage peer-to-peerrecommendation in school. You could set up systems ofrecommendation between tutor groups to create a bitof competition. Your area may run a local teenage bookaward with which you can get involved. For examplesof local reading initiatives, visit www.literacytrust.org.uk/campaign/citywideinitiatives.html. Importantly, for itto be authentic peer-to-peer recommendation, studentsneed to play an important role in running the systems;the students’ voices need to come through strongly.To raise the profile of peer recommendations, yourstudents could create visual displays around theschool, using posters, swap boxes or belly bands, inplaces where students might not expect to see readingsuggestions. Using the technology in your school tomake recommendations – on the school website,screensavers or on the welcome screen in reception– is a good way to disseminate messages to a largeaudience, including parents. As well as recommendingbooks and authors of fiction, make sure that yourrecommendations include great websites, comics,magazines and newspaper articles.Our favourite practical ideasBelly bands. If you have a reading ambassadors groupor reading club, ask them to write short movie reviewstylecomments about their recommended reads.Print their comments on belly bands (strips of paper)and wrap them around the books for a visual way topromote recommended reads.Our school reads: the movie. Lend video recordingequipment to students and set them the task ofinterviewing other students about their favourite reads.Encourage them to create a montage film of all of thevideo clips. Upload the film to the school website orplay it on the screen in reception, if you have thesefacilities.Point reward system. Set up a points reward system.If a student recommends a good read to a friend andtheir friend borrows it from the school library or readsthe book, the student is awarded three points andtheir friend, two points. Give rewards out to those whoachieve set milestones.Reading Connects downloadables. Download theReading Connects materials and edit the blank fields toadd your own recommendations as often as you like.The materials include a ‘read of the week’ poster, a‘top ten reads’ poster, shelf-talkers and ‘if you liked this,try this’ bookmarks. Visit the resources section of thewebsite to download these materials.NLT0171_Reading Connects Handbook_Secondary_AW.indd 18 24/10/08 14:05:28