The Slovene reading mouvement The Raeding Badge has developed various programmes and actions that promote family reading: The Cradle of Reading, Grandma and Grandpa telling and especially Preschool Reading Badge, that stimulates parents to read to pre-school children and to children in the first classes of the primary schools.

• There is in the curricula of kindergarten and first classes of primary school collaborating with parents on the field of reading. Reading is connected to family reading: children enjoy reading with their parents and are stimulated to learn to read (in school).
• Teachers explain to parents the importance of reading not only for the child’s pre-reading development but also for his mental and general development. They organize the professional lectures.
• They inform them about the importance of having enough proper books at their disposal. They organize lending books in the kindergartens and school libraries and introduce them the nearest public library.
• They inform them about the reading activities in kindergartens and schools.
• Teachers organize reading workshops with parents and children together, visiting (public) library and other activities connecting reading.

Reading workshops with parents and children together are the best method to involve parents into reading. It could be only one meeting per year or several meetings, regularly, one per month (one hour each):

• reading fiction books, esp. picture books,
• reading nonfiction books,
• reading periodicals for children and family,
• visiting a public library,
• visiting a puppet show and reading a fairy tale,
• using books and making greetings cards, toys, presents, etc.,
• using cooking books and preparing snacks,
• using books, maps, e-documents, etc., and preparing excursions,
• reading and writing poetry,
• etc.

Email: tilka.jamnik@lj-oz.sik.si

The Reading Badge was founded in the early 1960s as an answer to the deficiency of the literature teaching in the primary school. It was founded with purpose to help reach those goals of reading education that were less successfully achieved in school literature teaching. The young took to reading modern Slovene literature. Having read a certain number of books they were awarded a badge; collecting badges was very popular with the children in the late 50s. The badges represented acclaimed Slovene poets and writers coming from the region where certain badges were awarded.

• The Reading Badge builds on the tradition of 36 reading badges; it has been tending to become a modern movement for promotion of reading.
• It spreads the reading culture mostly among the young (pre-school, primary and secondary school children),
• It encourages mostly voluntary and free time reading, reading fiction books.
• It integrates all endeavours for better functional literacy of the individual and the society.
• It is spread all over Slovenia; it takes place also in the neighbouring countries with the Slovene speaking children including the children of the Slovene migrant workers.

The committee of The Reading Badge of Slovenia monitors the movement and takes care of the basic directives of its development, it issues material of motivation for young readers, prepares educational seminars and publishes educational material for the mentors, organizes the meetings of the children in schools, libraries, etc. with the authors of children’s literature.

It collaborates with experts from the field of children’s literature and literary didactics, bibliopedagogic practice of public libraries, Centre for children’s literature and librarianship in the children’s library Pionirska knjižnica in Ljubljana, Slovene section of IBBY,

Slovenian Reading Association, Slovene Writers’ Association, Slovene Association of Publishers and Booksellers, magazine Child and the Book, literary clubs, publishing houses, mass media.

 CT

The Reading Badge in primary schools is the main activity of the mouvement

• It covers 56 % of all primary school children (125.000 young readers) in 99 % of Slovene primary schools.
• It is to be carried out by about 5.000 teacher-mentors in primary schools together with the school and public libraries (extracurricular).
• It may have various forms: such as literary circle, school magazine, young reporters, etc. The project staff recommends conversations about books i.e. debate clubs on what young people have read, where the mentor’s role is to guide and to advise.
• The project staff suggests literary riddles, book quizzes and other forms of modern bibliopedagogy. It also suggests different stimulations, such as books of certain authors, books with certain topic, etc. but they are not obligatory, both readers and mentors are free at their choice. The mentors can get several useful hints in the annotated list of recommended novelty books and books of high quality prepared by the state central children’s public library Pionirska knjižnica in Ljubljana.
• It also produces special material (different leaflets, literary portfolios, puzzles, T-shirts, self-adhesive pictures, etc.), and it is not obligatory but only at readers’ and mentors’ disposal.
• As reward young readers are given books, they are taken to theatres and excursions; they meet authors of children’s literature which seems to be encouraging both for young readers and for authors.
• The Reading Badge is open to all kinds of suggestions.

Secretariat: Manca Perko and Kristina Picco

Slavko Pregl, president

Tilka Jamnik, vice-president

Street: Miklošičeva 16

City: Ljubljana

Postal code: 1000

Tel.: 01 4300 557, 01 4300 558, 041 313 055

Fax: 01 2396 722

E-mail: info@bralnaznacka.si

Web site: www.bralnaznacka.com