BOOKWORM

Objectives:
1. Choose at least 2 options for the 3 parts of the
questionnaire

2. Match at least 4 out or 8 words to their meaning

correctly

3. Identify at least 3 out of 5 true or false statements

correctly
Reading is to the mind what
exercising is to the body.

-Richard Steele
ACTIVITY 1
Answer the questions in the questionnaire and then
compare your answers with your friends.

I read because
 It helps me understand the world
 It is fun
 It helps me find out what I want or need to know
 I know I should
 For exam purposes
Which of the following do you read?

newspapers novels
magazines catalogues
text books encyclopedias
fiction websites
comics text messages
Which types of fiction do you like reading?

adventure romance
horror / ghost suspense/thriller
crime stories science-fiction
historical about wars
about animals comedy
fantasy about spies
Don’t force young to read
classics, says Anthony Horowitz
Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
The Times
1 Parents risk putting children off reading by dragging them
around bookstores and force-feeding them literary classics,
leading children’s writer Anthony Horowitz has suggested.

2 Horowitz, author of the bestselling Alex Rider series of action

adventure books, said the current public concern about
children’s reading had been fuelled and “hijacked” by the
overanxious, white, middle classes.

3 “Reading is not an issue we should keep banging children

over the head with,” he told The Times.

4 Horowitz’s comments follow publication yesterday of a

major review of literacy in primary schools by Cambridge
University, which suggested that gains in reading skills at
school through the national literacy strategy had been
achieved at the expense of pupils’ enjoyment of reading.
5 He also called on schools to set aside more time for children
to read for pleasure and less time for deconstructing texts
line by line.

6 At home, parents should not worry about trying to get their

children to read books they read as a child as children’s
literature was now in a golden era, he said.

7 “As children, my generation was given the books that our

parents read. Now children can discover their own writers.
There have never been so many good living young writers.”

8 Horowitz suggested that the best way that parents could

encourage a child to read was to set aside 15 minutes a
day to read to them.
9 “We are all so busy as adults that we tend to forget the
inestimable value of spending 15 minutes a day reading
with our child. There is no better way to get to know your
child than to share their books with them.

10 “It’s not going to be forever and they may not thank you for
it by the time they are teenagers, so that makes it more
valuable,” he said.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk – November, 2007

ACTIVITY 2 (Vocabulary)
Find these words and expressions in the article.

inestimable overanxious to set aside literacy

dragging at the expense of putting children of hijacked

1. discourage; cause someone lose interest –

2. take someone somewhere even if they do not want to go –

3. too worried –

4. ability to read and write –

5. causing harm to –

6. to save or keep something for a particular purpose –

7. beyond calculation or measure –

8. to engage in such stealing -

ACTIVITY 3

Read the article and decide whether the following statements are
true (T) or false (F).

1. Horowitz does not think we should worry too much about children’s
reading.

2. The review of literacy in primary schools by Cambridge University

suggests that the national literacy strategy has been successful.

3. According to Horowitz, schools should allow children to discover

that reading is fun.

4. Parents should put more pressure on their children to read literary

classics.

5. In Horowitz’s opinion the best way to encourage a child to read is to

make them read a book for 15 minutes a day.