Today, 4 March, is World Book Day, and, to celebrate, Tutor Trust Impact Coordinator Rawan Yousif takes a look at some ideas to help younger (and older) readers make the most of the day. And Rawan also takes a trip down memory lane with Tutor Trust colleagues.

Here at the Tutor Trust, we recognise the value and importance of reading, whether for work, school or pleasure. As a team, book recommendations (along with recipes, podcast episodes and Netflix picks) are shared constantly.

Despite being a very different year for schools and education as whole, we have outlined some great ways to make this World Book Day special, along with plenty of resources and activities you can use to help keep pupils and younger family members engaged.

Below, we’ve included some links to some great resources to help make this World Book Day as exciting as possible, along with some of our colleagues’ favourite childhood books to fill you with nostalgia.

Ideas

There are some great lockdown-adjusted methods to help pupils enjoy the day:

• Dress up! Though it might not be possible to get full costumes whilst at home, simple things like a hat or making a badge are great ways to get into the spirit of the day.
• Six-word stories: You can use the famous story (attributed to Ernest Hemmingway) as a guide, and ask pupils to try and come up with their own six-word stories.
• Get your acting muscles going by asking pupils to read out an extract in character; the more theatrical the better!

Resources

For Primary pupils, here are a range of talks from notable children’s authors, like Tom Fletcher, Jess French and Joseph Coelho. These videos (all roughly five minutes each) cover topics like writing poetry, world-building, and how to find creative inspiration for writing. Each author page also includes resources and materials you can use to create a lesson plan around the videos, like discussion points and excerpts to read together.

For Secondary pupils, here are talks from teen authors like Katherine Rundell, Derek Landy, and Malorie Blackman and Patrice Lawrence. Their videos focus on building three dimensional characters, how to write exciting adventures, and finding your personal writing style. Like the Primary videos, each page has discussion materials to build a lesson around.

As with every World Book Day, there are plenty of special new titles that are available for just £1. To find out more about the discount books and how to claim them, visit this page. 

And here you can find a whole host of work sheets, extracts and activities that are free to use anytime, not just today.

Our favourite childhood books

Here are some of the Tutor Trust team's favourite childhood stories

My favourite childhood book is 'The Adventures of Pippi Longstocking' by Astrid Lindgren. I loved it because I used to imagine being her, living all by myself with a horse on my porch!   

Vicky Sadler, Primary Quality Manager

My favourite childhood book was anything in the 'Goosebumps' series. I've always enjoyed horror since I was little, so there were perfect page-turners to read in the dead of night!

Sophie Chamberlain, Online Schools Coordinator

My favourite childhood book was anything Jaqueline Wilson, but I especially loved her book 'Best Friends'. I used to read this book over and over and I think I took a special liking to it because I actually went to a Jaqueline Wilson book signing where she signed it for me!

Leoni Taylor, Impact and Recruitment Administrator

World Book Day runs from today until 5 March, and its core messages are vital aspects of both teaching and learning English, so don’t feel that you have to limit these resources and ideas to just this week. Use today as a chance to empower pupils to talk to one another about their opinions and ideas, and use tuition as a space for them to explore what interests them about reading.