Publishers and teachers both have an interest in children engaging more in reading so how can we work together more successfully? 

Photo by RosZie at Pixabay. A colourful illustration of people working together in different situations.

This was a question I asked myself whilst listening to the panel discussions and keynote speeches at The Bookseller’s Children Book Conference 2024. Working previously in the early years of education I could see the similar struggles facing both industries. I tasked myself to bring together five creative ways publishers and primary teachers could work together.  

1. Teach publishing to children as a topic during the school year. I am sure we all remember topics from our primary school days, the Vikings, the Romans or Minibeasts are some I remember. What I propose is that teachers could plan a teaching topic on Publishing. Many of the curriculum areas could be taught through this topic, like Social Studies, Technology, Maths, English and Expressive Arts. It would give children a greater idea about the journey a book has been through before they see it in their bookshop or local library. Hopefully this will give them a greater appreciation for books and an increased desire to read them. 

2. Editors as guest teachers within literacy lessons in schools. As a primary teacher you teach all areas of the curriculum. It can be a difficult task for the teacher as they have to be an all-round expert in each area of the curriculum. With the added input of a professional editor I feel that both the teachers and children could benefit hugely.

3. Publishers can engage directly with schools for market research purposes. Publishers could visit schools more frequently to gain feedback about what children want to read. Having a more frequent connection with the schools would allow publishers to gain a deeper insight into the children’s reading habits. Then children’s literature events organised by publishers would be more closely matched to what the children need.

Photo by Syeda_Saira at Pixabay. An AI generated photograph of a group of children walking to school with their bag packs on.

4. Schools can coordinate school trips with book launches or literary events. During the school year it is vital teachers engage with the local community and take children out on trips. It could be amazing for schools to collaborate with a children’s publisher so that an added literacy focus could be intertwined within school trips taking place throughout the year. 

5. Publishers can run events within school buildings. Book fairs and literary evenings could all be run within the school building. The barriers to engagement for the local community would be vastly diminished as families would feel comfortable being in the school setting which they would have attended many times before. With increased parent involvement it would hopefully see a rise in parents reading and that would encourage their children to read too.

This is just a starting point, and I hope if you are a publisher or teacher, you can implement one or more of these ideas in your practice this year. If you have any additional ideas, please comment below so we can create an active resource for our publishing and teaching community to refer to.

Photo by fauxels at Pexels. A group of people are sitting around a table at a meeting, two of the people are shaking hands like they have just agreed on a deal.

References

The Bookseller (2024) The Bookseller’s Children’s Book Conference 2024, online, 30 September 2024.

Images sourced from Pixabay and Pexels.