Teaching reading – don't just do it by the book!
The i-read author team is made up of experienced and popular children's authors.
Read biographies for Ann Webley, Pie Corbett, Paul Cookson, Chris Powling, Chris Buckton, Tony Mitton, Teresa Saunders, Michaela Morgan, Brian Moses, Gina Douthwaite, Wes Magee, Gill Matthews, Sarah Fleming, Debjani Chatterjee, Clare Bevan, John Rice, John Foster and Valerie Bloom.
I have been a successful primary teacher and Leading Literacy Teacher in Gloucestershire for many years. During that time I was featured on the "Grammar for Writing" video and I also wrote some Exemplification Units for NLS. This gave me a taste for life outside my classroom!
In July 2003, I left full-time teaching to work as a freelance literacy consultant and a writer. Since then I have worked for several publishers and also had articles printed in the Educational press. I also spend a lot of time visiting schools. I give demonstration lessons, run staff meetings and INSET and provide as much practical support and advice as I can.
Pie Corbett writes and edits poetry books for children and resource books for teachers. To date he has published over 50 books and several key educational schemes. He has run writing workshops, performed poetry and told stories from one end of the country to the other. He has appeared at festivals in Edinburgh, Cheltenham, and Wiltshire and was the first 'poet in residence' attached to the Kent Literature Festival.
He is a selector for the 'Children's Poetry Bookshelf'. He wrote the poetry objectives for the National Literacy Strategy. He was English Inspector in Gloucestershire and his in-service training sessions on teaching writing are well known for their humour and insight into the writing process.
'Raising standards in reading using ICT' (512Kb, WMV)
Pie Corbett's seminar at the Education Show 2006
This video lasts for 45 minutes. To view this file you will need Windows Media Player. Download Microsoft Windows Media Player
Paul Cookson is the poet in residence at the National Football Museum. His early ambitions were to play guitar in Slade or football for Everton. Instead he was the utility player for his school team. His first hat trick of poetry influences were D.H. Lawrence, Roger McGough and John Cooper Clarke. He Published his first book when he was 18 and now has over 40 collections and has sold over half a million books. Paul has visited over 2000 schools. A Paul Cookson performance is never forgotten - he has the rare ability to combine the silly and the serious and fully engage audiences of all ages. He still plays five-a-side football every Sunday night. For more information visit: www.paulcooksonpoet.co.uk
A broadcaster for many years, he has presented, or contributed to, programmes on BBC radio 3, 4 and 5 mainly on Arts subjects or on children's reading, writing and language. Currently, he is 'resident bookworm' on classic FM's Newsnight programme with a weekly review of books for adults.
Chris was editor of the children's book magazine Books for Keeps from 1989-1996 when it won the Eleanor Farjeon Award for services to children's literature, has served on numerous prize panels and is consultant to a national children's book club. He has written more than sixty books for children including The Mustang Machine, The Phantom Carwash, The Conker As Hard As A Diamond and The Multi-Million Pound Mascot.
Chris Buckton has been involved in education for over thirty years, as classroom teacher, headteacher, adviser and inspector. She was a member of the National Literacy Strategy writing team and contributed the teaching materials for fiction and poetry at KS2. She is the joint author of Searchlights for Spelling with Pie Corbett, and Cornerstones for Writing at KS1 with Leonie Bennett. She now enjoys writing her own fiction for CUP, OUP, Badger and Harcourt. Currently she is working on a longer historical novel with a workhouse setting.
In 1999 she was awarded the MBE for services to Family Literacy.
Tony Mitton spent much of his early childhood abroad before going to a state boarding grammar school for his secondary education. At school he was very involved with drama and music, but also liked writing assignments and reading in his spare time. He went on to do a degree in English at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. After graduation he trained as an English teacher, but went on to work instead as a primary school teacher, a preferred option.
In his mid thirties he became a father and went part-time as a teacher to share parenting with his wife. At this time he began to specialise in mainstream special needs teaching, working with literacy and behaviour issues.
He recalls having a keenness for poetry, song and story from an early age and wrote poetry consistently from his teens onwards. However, he only began writing for children around the age of 40. His first efforts in this new realm were for his own children, but the pleasure of this kind of writing soon prompted him to work at it and seek publication.
His first collection of poems, PLUM, was published in 1998 and has been followed by THE RED AND WHITE SPOTTED HANDKERCHIEF (winner of the Smarties Silver Medal), PIP (a Poetry Book Choice) and FLUFF AND OTHER STUFF. Tony has also written many picture book texts including DOWN BY THE COOL OF THE POOL and the AMAZING MACHINES series as well as ten books of RAP RHYMES, humorous versions of well-known traditional stories.
He now writes full-time, as well as giving performances of his work in schools and libraries and at festivals. He lives in Cambridge with his wife and their two teenage children.
Teresa was born in Cirencester but spent her childhood in Egypt. She now lives in Wales. She trained as a newspaper journalist, working as a reporter, news feature writer, television critic and columnist before specialising as an education journalist. From 1984 to 2002, she edited Scholastic's Junior Education magazine. She is now works as a freelance education journalist, children's writer and education resources writer. Her publications include: Child Education, Junior Education, Literacy Time, Times Educational Supplement (TES) and now Cambridge University Press. She has written website material for Save the Children and the Literacy series Word Power for David Fulton Publishers. She is married with two daughters and two grandchildren. Her interests are storytelling, ancient civilisations and travelling.
Born in Manchester - left in order to misspend youth in more exotic locations.
Now lives six months of the year in Brighton (where, sadly, she has yet to fulfil her full potential as a rollerblader) and six months keeping warm on the Cote d'Azur.
She was educated at the Universities of Warwick (BA Hons English), Leicester (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) and Cambridge (Further Studies in Education).
Michaela has taught a wide age range - from bright eyed infants to jaded fraudsters. She was a Writer in Residence in prisons and has run many workshops for children and adults.
A popular speaker at national and international conferences, her work includes a British Council sponsored trip to South Africa to give talks and run workshops with teachers in townships.
In the UK she has spoken at: UKRA conference, Primary English conference, the University of Leicester School of Education, University of Nottingham School of Education and the Federation of Children's Books. Contributed to many other conferences and INSETs.
Brian Moses started writing as a teenager. He tried to play the guitar and write songs. When he realised that he wasn't going to become a rock star (which was incidentally some time after everyone else had come to the same conclusion) he put the guitar away and the songs turned into poems. To date he has over 150 books published including volumes of his own poetry such as 'Barking Back at Dogs', and anthologies such as 'The Secret Lives of Teachers' (both Macmillan) and picture books such as 'Beetle in the Bathroom' (Puffin). A new solo collection 'Taking Out the Tigers' (Macmillan) has just been published. Over 700,000 copies of Brian's poetry books have now been sold by Macmillan.
Brian also visits schools to run writing workshops and perform his own poetry and percussion shows. To date he has visited well over 2000 schools and libraries throughout the UK. He has made several appearances at the Edinburgh Festival, been writer in residence at Castle Cornet on Guernsey and at RAF schools in Cyprus. Recently he has visited several international schools in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain and Ireland.
Find out more about Brian Moses and read some of his poems on The Poetry Zone.
Born in Greenock, Scotland, Wes Magee is a former primary school teacher and headteacher. He has been a full time author since 1999 and since then has published 4 collections of poetry for adults and over 80 books for children - including poetry, stories, plays, picture books and anthologies. Wes regularly visits schools and colleges giving tutorials and performing his Poetry Show.
Sarah has been a foreign correspondent in Africa and the Gulf, a producer for children's TV, and she has worked in costume for film and TV before writing for children. Magpie-like, she collects fascinating facts about the world around us, which she loves to pass on to others in her books. Sarah's works have been published by Cambridge, OUP, and Scholastic. Most of her published work is non-fiction but she has been known to pen the odd story too.
With over 45 books published, Debjani is one of Britain's best-known Asian writers. Amongst other jobs, she has been Writer-in-residence in Bedfordshire Schools, the Poet-in-residence at Sheffield Children's Hospital, and Writer/storyteller-in-residence at Sheffield's Millennium Galleries. You can find out more at http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/DebjaniChatterjee.
John Rice is a nationally known storyteller and poet who works within the Scots/Irish tradition. He has published 13 books for both adults and children. He is particularly well known for his highly entertaining shows which he has presented at venues such as The Barbican, the South Bank and Edinburgh Book Festival.
John Foster has compiled over a hundred anthologies of poetry for children. A former teacher in Oxfordshire comprehensives for over 20 years, he has since visited over 500 schools to lead poetry workshops. He also leads sessions for teachers and librarians. You can find an interview with him here at www.poetryzone.ndirect.co.uk/foster.htm.
Val Bloom has performed her work throughout the world on television and radio. She is equally experienced in the classroom and runs courses for teachers and librarians as well as conducting writing and performance workshops in schools. Her lively poetry is written in English and Jamaican patois. You can find out more at www.valbloom.co.uk