Yesterday the Our Stories campaign on the North Yorkshire Coast launched an Extreme Readers competition for local children and their grown-ups. They are being given a chance to win a stack of books and a personalised artwork worth £250 by reading in unlikely places.
The competition has been launched with a video of Campaigns Officer Hannah Riley reading-on-wheels at the skate park. Literacy Champions are also supporting the initiative by hiding books near landmarks across the local area. Local children are being invited to create their own extreme reading photo or video and the winning entry will have their image recreated as an illustration by Scarborough-based artist Simon Whittaker.
This initiative is part of a wider campaign to share stories across Filey, Whitby and Scarborough in order to tackle low literacy at a community level. In 2019, almost 1 in 3 (29.9%) 11-year-olds in Yorkshire and the Humber left primary school unable to read well, the lowest of any region in England. In Scarborough, this rose to over half (54.1%) of disadvantaged children being unable to read well.[1] However, our research shows that 1 in 4 children enjoyed reading more during lockdown than before - the Extreme Readers competition will harness this enjoyment and promote a love for storytelling.
The competition is open to children and their grown-ups living in Filey, Whitby or Scarborough. Entries should be submitted to hannah.riley@literacytrust.org.uk or via our local Facebook page by Monday 4 January 2021.
James Kingett, Programme Manager for Our Stories, said: “This competition is a fun way to end 2020 – not only is this an opportunity for children to show off their skills, it’s also a chance for us to prove that reading is fun and you can do it absolutely anywhere. I can’t wait to see all the entries and find out who wins their very own masterpiece along with some great books to start the New Year.”