Just Read and Why Reading Matters
| 10:00 UK time, Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Catch two ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Four programmes about the importance of reading on the iPlayer just now..
In Just Read with Michael Rosen the children's laureate and poet Michael Rosen, worried that children don't seem to read as much as they used to, takes on an ordinary primary school in Cardiff to see if he can start a reading revolution in just ten weeks.
He gives the staff permission to break into a packed curriculum simply to introduce good books and stories, after discovering that a lot of the children don't have many books at home and have never visited a library.
And in Why Reading Matters science writer Rita Carter tells the story of how modern neuroscience has revealed that reading, something most of us take for granted, unlocks remarkable powers. Carter explains how the classic novel Wuthering Heights allows us to step inside other minds and understand the world from different points of view, and she wonders whether the new digital revolution could threaten the values of classic reading.
