Sunday, March 04, 2007










The Reading Adventures Conference organised by the brilliant Miriam Posner and held in Jerusalem from 19 - 21st February brought together academics and reading promotion practitioners from around the world.

To begin with Prof Stephen Krashen delivered a passionate and witty keynote speech on 'Free Voluntary Reading: the most powerful took in language development.
"Study after study confirms that those who read more read better, write better, have larger vocabularies, and have a better control of complex grammatical constructions."

At the end of the conference Prof. Dr Hans-Heino Ewers argued that "all too often for educational policy reasons discussions about the importance of literary education in the era of multimedia side with the traditional media only."

Between the two keynotes, workshops covered every aspect of reading promotion including: the School Library as a focal point for cultural enrichment for the whole school population; the principles practices and effects of reading aloud to young children; connecting Jewish and Arab children through reading - and much more.

I was there with EUREAD colleagues from Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, talking about Bookstart and Bookfutures. It was a fascinating week and I'll be writing more about it soon.

Discussions at the bar with Belgian academic Prof. Ronald Soetaert led to the issue of how few rock songs feature references to books and reading. Can you add any to our short list?

Paperback Writer; Day In The Life ('I read the news today oh boy'); (who who who wrote..) The Book of Love; Every Day I Write the Book - Elvis Costello...
Can you think of more? Do tell.