News
Chatterbooks goes international
The Reading Agency is piloting a Chatterbooks international project with the British Council and their Connecting Classrooms programme.
Launched in November 2009 the pilot runs till March 2010, with Chatterbooks groups in UK schools partnering up with groups in Ghana, Pakistan, Egypt and China. The groups are now well into their stride and we're getting lovely feedback from the children and teachers - here's a message from a teacher in Pakistan:
"We too finished the book 'This Morning I met a Whale' (by Michael Morpurgo). The children just loved being read too. They filled out the pre-reading questionnaire too. After the teacher finished reading the book to students, they eagerly took it home over the weekend. Then Sarah ( the teacher working with me on this project) and I conducted an outdoor discussion activity in the school ground.The children were asked to work in groups to choose any other animal and think of any message from it. WOW! That was just brilliant! they came up with such powerful messages that even I was bowled over. The children came up with very powerful ideas during discussions. The best part was that they loved being asked their opinion. Being out of the class, in an informal setting was fun for them. The thing which gave me immense satisfaction and infused further enthusiasm was that the two extremely shy students who never speak in class in spite of all our efforts were visibly vibrant as well as confidently expressive. Hurrah! this just proves our first project was superbly successful."
Read a schools' partnership profile of two schools in Staffordshire and Egypt that is part of our work with the British Council and their Connecting Classrooms project.
Read more about Chatterbooks with the British Council in this Guardian Books Online feature.
And Chatterbooks by the pyramids! Pupils from the Mostafa Kamel Experimental School in Egypt enjoy reading 'What Planet are you from Clarice Bean?' by Lauren Child - they will be sharing their views on this book with their Chatterbooks partner school Tower View Primary in Staffordshire.
For more about this Chatterbooks Connecting Classrooms partnership see this BBC World Class news report.
