*** HRH, The Duchess
of Cornwall and bestselling author, James Patterson, mark launch of campaign
with visit to dads’ reading group in the Royal Borough of Greenwich
*** UK’s leading
reading charity Booktrust launches the ‘Get Dads Reading’ campaign and
challenges dads to match mums in reading with their children
UK dads trail far behind their partners when it comes to reading to
their children. A new poll, carried out for Booktrust by Opinium,
reveals that just 13% are the main reader with their child, with a quarter of
fathers saying that the demand for them to work late means
that they do not have time to read together more often.
Booktrust
is calling on dads up and down the country to match mums’ efforts in reading
with their children. To launch the campaign Booktrust’s patron, HRH, The
Duchess of Cornwall and bestselling author James Patterson – 2010 Children’s Choice Book Award
Author of the Year and founding partner of the Booktrust’s
Children’s Reading Fund in association which his publisher Random House –
will this afternoon visit a thriving dads reading group to see how dads and
their children benefit from sharing books. At the moment, research shows
that at formal literacy events for children, only 10% of the parents
attending are dads.
James
Patterson – who started writing for children in 2005 in
order to encourage his son to read and has developed his own website, ReadKiddoRead,
to help dads find books to read with their children – adds:
‘If we can get children reading and
enjoying books, we open up a whole world of possibility to them. I believe
that dads have a huge role to play in encouraging their children to
read. We need to give fathers the
support they need in reading to their children. If I can help dads to
understand their role in making books and reading more important in children’s
lives, I’ll be a happy man’
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