Score a Book!

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Guest Blogger: Jolanda Robben, coordinator Score a Book!, Biblionet Groningen

Learning to read well is of great importance to growing children. It helps even more when they enjoy reading. With this in mind, Biblionet Groningen and the FC Groningen Foundation are performing the Score a Book! project: a unique reading project for primary school pupils aged 7 to 9. Score a Book! combines reading with football, because you can score anywhere!

With Score a Book! pupils are challenged in a playful way to read as many books as they can in class in ten weeks. The pupils are cheered on by a professional football player using videos. For every book they have read, the pupils stick a ‘ball’ (sticker) on a poster. In this way we know of every class how many books they read during the project. Score a Book! is concluded with a sporting party at which the pupils can score on the football pitch.

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It is known that boys lag behind girls in the area of reading. By connecting a reading project to football, the boys are particularly engaged. Since 2016, the project has been expanded with a home edition. The pupils encourage their parents and other family members to read extra at home as well.

Score a Book! has grown in six years’ time to become one of the most successful reading projects in the north of the Netherlands. In 2016, in the province of Groningen 6665 pupils participated. The final score was impressive: the pupils read a total of no less than 53,721 books.

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The success of Score a Book! has not gone unnoticed in the rest of the Netherlands. At the moment, Biblionet Groningen is working with other libraries on a national rollout.

The Dutch Premier League clubs PSV Eindhoven, Heracles Almelo and Go Ahead Eagles have already confirmed they would like to participate in Score a Book!.

And it does not stop there. In October 2016, the organisation of the Dutch Premier League signed a pledge, in which the 18 Premier League clubs promise to undertake efforts to fight low literacy and to promote reading by means of projects such as Score a Book!. This promise is an important step in the national roll-out of this sporting project.

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Want to know more? Please contact Jolanda Robben:

j.robben@biblionetgroningen.nl

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Website www.scooreenboek.nl