When children struggle with reading

“If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be?” That was one of the questions the writer and academic Norman Geras asked me in a profile for his excellent Norm’s Blog a few months back. Every Friday he puts interviewees on the spot by asking them to answer a pithy list of questions, from their favourite novels to their most treasured possessions.

I thought for a moment and in a flash the answer to the policy change conundrum popped into my head. “I’d increase spending massively on one-to-one reading support for early years and primary school aged children who need it,” I said.

And I meant it. Reading is such a fundamental part of life – from the day you read your first Biff and Chip book by yourself to the moment you discover an amazing new author. I’ve got a stack of books on the go right now, from the new Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford to You Before Me by Jojo Moyes, which I’ll be reviewing on the blog tomorrow.

One of the bits of journalism that most sticks in my mind was a piece I wrote about the Every Child a Reader project a couple of years back. A programme for five and six year olds (year 1 at primary school) who were struggling with reading, it gave them one to one lessons for half an hour at school each day with highly trained reading recovery teachers.

It was a brilliant idea and had spectacular results. The children progressed leaps and bounds, their confidence and self-esteem blossomed and they made four times the normal rate of progress in reading. In fact most of them caught up with the other children in their class.

Sadly, the Every Child a Reader programme funding only ran for three years and came to an end in 2011. There are other initiatives around, like the Evening Standard's Get London Reading campaign, which is giving more than 1,000 schoolchildren who can’t read properly help from special mentors. But we definitely need many more projects like it.

Laura Marling, Saunton Sands and the last day of the holidays

It’s the last day of the holidays and everyone’s feeling grumpy. So grumpy that you could cut the air with a knife. My son’s revising polymers (I’m not sure what they even are) and my daughter’s trying to write an essay on nineteenth century French philosophy.

Our Cumbrian Christmas (above) seems another world away. Tomorrow my son will be back at school and my daughter will catch the Oxford Tube back to university. We always check the dates extra carefully after the debacle of a few years ago when I put my daughter on the school bus the day before term actually started. She was halfway to Oxford by the time she realised none of her friends had got on the bus. She’s never lived it down – her pal Holly was still teasing her about it on New Year’s Eve, seven years later.

I love the holidays. The atmosphere in the house is completely different. My Laura Marling tracks get switched off (“ugh,” says my horrified son) and Radio One blares constantly in the kitchen. My son cooks bacon sandwiches every couple of hours and my daughter sits in my study and chats to me. Neither of them emerge till 11 most mornings and they both stay up for hours after I’ve gone to bed.

Their school holidays are far more relaxed and free than the ones I remember. Me and my sister often spent Easter and summer breaks with our grandparents in the wilds of North Devon. It was a lovely place but it certainly wasn’t relaxed. Most days we’d buy picnics of Cornish pasties and Kunzel Cakes at Mr Moon’s old-fashioned grocery shop. We’d go for long windswept walks across Saunton Sands and try and steer clear of my grandmother’s two yappy Dachshund dogs, who were liable to take a bite out of our ankles when we weren’t looking. Every Saturday morning we walked into the pretty town of Braunton to spend our pocket money on Enid Blyton books, tiny bottles of Devon violets and Refresher sweets. How times have changed…

The Dangerous Book for Boys - everything a 21st century boy needs to know

The New Year has arrived with 85 mph winds lashing the country, driving rain and a clutch of ultra-depressing surveys.

Why are we so addicted to surveys? The papers are full of them – and the crazier they sound the more column inches they get.

Today’s batch is as eclectic as ever. So far I’ve clocked that only one in three of us bother with breakfast these days and more than 2.5 million of us will start a diet before nightfall. Oh, and if that’s not enough, another claims that two-thirds of UK drivers are so confused by basic road signs they simply copy the driver in front.

But the most annoying survey of all (apart from one saying that today is the gloomiest day of the year) reckons there’s a strong link between being involved in sport and popularity. Apparently the more teams and clubs your children play for the more friends they’ll have.

Hmmm. It sounds like yet another thing for parents to fret about. Rather than agonising about my children getting into sports teams I was far keener to see them reading books, playing with friends, riding bikes, building dens and going for long country walks.

When my son was little all he wanted to do was emulate the creators of his favourite book, The Dangerous Book for Boys. He had no interest whatsoever in becoming the next David Beckham but saw co-authors Conn and Hal Iggulden as super-heroes. He thought they covered pretty much everything a 21st century boy needed to know (well nearly), from racing a go-kart to making paper planes.

I became a fan of the book too after reading an interview with Conn – where he expressed his fears that parents have become so terrified of letting boys be boys that we’re in danger of creating “a generation of frightened men.” He spent his own childhood constructing catapults and spud guns and thought today’s generation should switch off their Xboxes and computers for a change and go and do something more adventurous. Interestingly, Labour MP Diane Abbott takes a smilar line in today's Evening Standard: "Carrying on with the chips and PlayStation 3 culture is not an option," she says.

My son loves his Xbox as much as the next boy but he's in total agreement with such sentiments. Rather than pleading to join the local football or tennis club, he threw himself into scary pursuits like mountain-boarding and biking – and has never looked back.

Children's self portraits for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee

It’s amazing to think that the Queen is celebrating 60 years on the throne. The year's celebrations will range from a Diamond Jubilee Pageant in the grounds of Windsor Castle in May to a magnificent flotilla of 1,000 boats sailing along the River Thames in June.

But I reckon one of the most imaginative and creative tributes of all is Face Britain. An initiative launched by the Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts, it's set to be the UK’s largest ever mass collaborative art project.

Open to children aged four to 16, Face Britain is challenging youngsters across the UK to create their own self portraits. The artwork - from photographs and paintings to 3D images and graphics - will then be combined to create a massive montage of the Queen and the result will be projected on to the front of Buckingham Palace in April.

As well as providing a spectacular snapshot of how the nation’s children see themselves it’s hoped that the portrait will set a new Guinness World Record for the artwork with the greatest number of individual contributing artists.

It all sounds huge fun and thousands of Face Britain registration packs have been sent to schools and youth clubs in the UK, with a letter about the project from former children’s laureate Michael Morpurgo.

Best of all, Face Britain isn’t a competition so any child can take part, whatever their level of skill and whatever medium they use. Children must photograph their finished work and then upload it to the Face Britain website before March 31.

PS. At 17 my son’s too old to join in (shame) but the picture above is a self portrait he painted in his primary school days. I liked it so much that I kept it.

New Year detox - giving up alcohol for January

Christmas is well and truly over in our house. The tree’s on its way out, we’ve posted our thank-you letters and there’s only one sorry-looking Christmas clementine left.

So it’s on with the New Year and as usual I’ve gone and made my annual resolution – a resolution no one believes I’m capable of keeping and which I’m regretting like mad already. Yes, I’m giving up alcohol for January.

My four weeks of abstinence date back to the heady days when I worked as a reporter in Fleet Street. The 25-strong news team started work at dawn and by the time we’d seen the final edition to bed everyone piled out to the pub over the road for a drink. When a major story broke, the news editor would simply ring the landlord and order everyone back to the office.

Unless it was January, that is. On January 1st every year, most of us turned stone-cold sober for four weeks and could be found sitting quietly at our desks, munching sandwiches and drinking the canteen’s disgusting coffee.

So this year I’m doing it again – and I know I’ll find it embarrassingly difficult. Instead of pouring a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio after work every night I’ll be opting for a litre of mineral water or my eighth cup of Earl Grey. Neither of them quite do the trick so if anyone has got any more appealing drinks to try I’d love some suggestions.

The most annoying thing is that apart from making me feel virtuous, my annual alcohol detox doesn’t make me feel better. My skin doesn’t glow, the pounds don’t fall off and worst of all, being tee-total is just, well, plain boring.

PS. “What’s your favourite David Bowie track?” It’s not the usual question you get asked in a shop – but that’s what an assistant in In Spitalfields, a shop in Old Spitalfields Market, said to me yesterday. “Er, Changes,” I said, amazed that I could even remember the title. “Why?” “We’ve decided to have a David Bowie day,” he said, “so I’m asking every customer what their favourite track is and then playing it.” What a great retail idea in these tough economic times. I stayed in the shop a good ten minutes longer than I would have otherwise and ended up buying a card and a chic wastepaper bin for my study.

Happy New Year from House With No Name

Forget wild parties and tuneless renditions of Auld Lang Syne at three a.m. My idea of the perfect New Year’s Eve is strolling round the corner to share a glass or two of ice-cold champagne with friends and being home by one in the morning.

Not surprisingly, my 20 year old daughter isn’t at all impressed by plans like these, so she’s decamping to London. And even though my 17 year old son used to be happy with a Pepsi Max, chocolate fondue and Jools Holland on the telly, these days he’d far rather spend the evening with his pals.

My mum wasn’t a big fan of New Year either. Once we’d all grown up and left home she preferred to sit on her London terrace and enjoy the dazzling array of fireworks exploding across the clear night sky. She was completely appalled one year when out of the blue her very well-meaning temporary PA knocked on the front door to keep her company and stayed till dawn.

On that note, I hope you have a cracking New Year’s Eve and brilliant 2012. See you next year...