This year, Read for Good celebrates 40 years of Readathon® which was started way back in 1984 by former teacher and published author, Brough Girling.
“Readathon is brilliant! We brand it as a ‘win, win, win’. We always think ‘where’s the catch?’ and there isn’t one!” Librarian, The Swan School
Money raised by schools through this simple sponsored read has helped seriously ill children for decades. Since 2010, children reading for Readathon are helping us to get a regular supply of brand-new books and professional Storyteller visits to children in hospitals across the UK.
Readathon started before Comic Relief and in the very early days of Children in Need. Well before others, Brough recognised the power and potential when you unite a school community in a fun challenge with a compelling cause. He knew that children were innately good, with natural empathy and a drive to help others, long before many other charities cottoned on to their potential.
Readathon was launched in response to the introduction of a BBC Computer and the famous ZX Spectrums into schools. Authors and publishers thought children would never want to pick up a book again! (And how interesting that this has been echoed wtih different technology through the years.)
Brough fundamentally believed that books are like toys to young children. If they choose to spend their precious time reading, then it fulfils the same need as kicking a football, playing with Lego or watching TV. He believed that this innate joy needs to be fostered and encouraged as children grow and face more and more distractions.
It was vital to Brough that Readathon put children at its heart. He felt strongly that children should be able to choose to read whatever they love, with no assessment or testing, no comprehension or quizzes. Adding reading tasks immediately stops it being about ‘reading for fun’ and turns it into another school subject.
Brough also understood that it’s vital for the adults around children to value their choices. As adults, it’s all to easy to criticise a child’s choices – suggesting they could read something ‘better’ or more ‘suitable’ for their age group. Our work in hospitals reinforces just how important it is that children are given freedom to choose, and that those choices are valued. We often see that children and young people in hospital gravitate to books from their younger years, providing comfort, familiarity and solace, and not requiring too much effort. That’s proper ‘reading for pleasure’.
These principles are still at the heart of Read for Good’s work today.
Readathon has continued to support reading for pleasure in schools by providing access to first class resources and championing reading choice, along with the all-important motivation. The money raised helps Read for Good’s hospital programme, providing the best brand-new books and resident storyteller visits for children in the 30 major children’s hospitals across the UK.
At Read for Good, we are enormously grateful to all the schools, organisations and individuals who support our work getting books and stories to children, helping to foster a life-changing love of reading.
One in two schools has run Readathon since it started and, in an average year, more than 1,000 schools and 350,000 pupils get involved, along with hundreds of schools who join our successful, free online author events.
Since 2010, Scholastic has helped to get over £1.35m worth of books to Readathon schools and National Book Tokens has helped fund over £100,000 worth of tokens since 2011. (Figures to June 2024.)
Roald Dahl was Readathon’s first Honorary Chair, and since then, we’ve also enjoyed the support of countless authors and illustrators – in fact we’ve worked with nearly every Children’s Laureate since this began in 1999!
Let’s keep reading and raising for another 40 years, reaping the benefits of reading for fun while helping children in hospital — thank you for all your support!
Order your next free Readathon kit (worth £35!) here.
“This was so much fun! When is the next one?!” Pupil, Northgate High School
