Families learning on World Book Day Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - 18:18

The Family Learning Breakfasts - held today, World Book Day - are designed to encourage the whole family to read together. The breakfasts - piloted in schools in Sheffield, Derbyshire, Rotherham, the Isle of Wight and Tower Hamlets in London - will help raise standards of literacy for both parents and children and to extend parents' skills in supporting their children.

Doctor Who author Terrance Dicks, who has written two Quick Reads books - Revenge of the Judoon and Made of Steel - is visiting Kobi Nazrul Primary School in Tower Hamlets to talk to children and their parents about his books.

Carol Taylor, Operational Director at NIACE, who is also at the breakfast event at Kobi Nazrul Primary School, said:

"We know that poor literacy skills not only impact on the lives of adults but also on the lives of their children. A recent Ofsted survey suggests that family learning not only helps adults to improve their skills, but that learning in this way helps develop the communication and self - confidence of their children."

"The Family Learning Breakfasts are just one of many steps to help get adults and children reading and learning together. Quick Reads have transformed thousands of lives through learning in colleges and community centres, libraries, prisons and workplaces across the country. With these Family Learning Breakfasts, our aim is to encourage families to read together at home."

Downloadable information packs are available to schools and family centres via the Quick Reads and World Book Day websites, with guidelines on how schools can set up a Family Learning Breakfast.

A range of brand new children's books published on World Book Day will be read by the children, and the new Quick Reads books - written especially for adults new to reading - will be available for parents.

Since Quick Reads' inception in March 2006, over one and a quarter million copies have been sold. As well as being brilliant short books for regular readers, they have introduced hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, who have not picked up a book since school, to the world of reading. One of its champions, the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, described Quick Reads as, ‘one of the great success stories of the English language'.