Would you and your children like to join Egmont’s Reading club? Sign up here - £300 voucher to be won

[JustineBMumsnet]

We are looking for Mumsnetters in the UK with at least one child aged 2-12 to read with their children and be part of Egmont’s Reading Club.

If you have more than one child you’d like to take part, please sign up individually for them by completing the survey more than once, using the same personal details for yourself. You will need to complete individual feedback for each child as a part of the reading club.

Egmont will be sending you and your child at least 2 books weekly and occasionally magazines for a period of 6 weeks, asking you to read together and share your experiences. You’d also get a copy of Help Your Child Love Reading by Alison David.

Here’s what Egmont has to say: “Coronavirus has turned the world upside down and we are all dealing with a new ‘normal’ – the children are home from school and we have to find ways to keep them occupied, happy and to keep the learning going. There is one simple thing that can help in so many ways, and that’s reading aloud to them. We’d like you to read to your child every day, more than once a day if you’d like! That’s why we are starting the Egmont Reading Club on Mumsnet.

We at Egmont know the enormous benefits of reading aloud to children including supporting their learning and a better sense of wellbeing. It's deeply comforting to be read to and in these times of uncertainty we're keen to help families enjoy special time together.”

Selected testers will be asked to complete the following tasks:

1. Indicate which books (from a list) that you’d like to receive each week for 6 weeks
2. Read with your children daily or more often.
3. Fill in a reading diary (which we will be sending to you weekly).
4. Leave your feedback for each week of reading throughout the 6 weeks on a public thread on Mumsnet.

All selected participants in Egmont’s Reading Club who leave the required feedback on the public feedback thread and in all 6 weekly diaries will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

If you’re interested in taking part, click here to sign up.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

Phew, I thought I was going mad - we don't get any emails since week three but have had six magazines sent over the last few weeks. I no idea they were coming from Egmont so wondered who was sending them

I’ve just had to redo the diaries for the beginning of this week as it looks like they didn’t save properly again! Some of the entries are quite generic now as my memory is terrible at the moment so I can’t remember what we read earlier!

@YoureMyWifeNowDave
I had issues with mine not saving early on in the test, and then thought it was me trying to continue it on my phone instead of pc.
Tonight was finishing off this week’s, checking everything... and weekend entries aren’t there!!! I distinctly remember re-clicking on the links like a maniac to check the “You’ve already...” page, but now nothing! I had also done the survey but that showed as blank, too.

It's been a lovely experience but I've honestly given up trying. Up until bank holiday it was fine, since then it's been a bit annoying.

@osquito and @JustineBMumsnet

I've found the same - that the diary entries don't appear to be saved, or at least I don't get the 'you've already taken this survey' message, but it was an issue with the first surveys and mumsnet reassured us that they were saved /visible from their side. So, I'm not trying to redo surveys that I know I've done.

Good news for me was that I will be getting the week 6 books, even though I did the choices late (I've no idea what's happened to dd's wk 5 books!) but I had an email to say the ones I'd chosen for wk6 were out of stock and did I want to chose different ones. I found it took hours to search the egmont site for suitable books in the first place and there was no indication that some of the books were out of print, so I've asked for surprises.

@malmontar, I kind of agree, everything went chaotic since the Bank Holiday - if they'd pre emptively sent out the surveys on the Thursday instead of leaving it til Mon (or started sending them on Fri again after that week) we wouldn't be trying to play catch up the whole time!

Even though its been a very intensive process, I've still really enjoyed it and the bonus for the kids (and me) of regularly reading and free books/comics are fantastic.

Sorry @JustineBMumsnet, I've no idea how I managed to tag you in that post. I meant to tag @YoureMyWifeNowDave... Sorry for bothering you. 🤦‍♂️

@leeloo1
I didn’t refill my missing ones in, either - when I had done them it definitely showed as survey being taken so I figure they must have received it anyway. It’s frustrating to experience issues with the forms, but overall I’ve also had a really positive experience from this test - DS has come on amazingly in past few weeks, so proud of him!

I had to redo mine as I couldn’t remember if I’d done Mondays or Tuesdays! I am losing track of days with the children not at school 🙄

Hi all, thanks for taking part in the Reading Club so far! Egmont has asked us to pass on the below message, but we at Mumsnet also wanted to pass on our apologies for missing some of your comments on this thread and for any issues you've experienced with forms, later than expected deliveries or links. Hopefully any issues you had are now resolved, but if not, please do reply to one of the emails we've sent you and we'll look into it ASAP.

"Dear Reading Club members

Thank you all, very much, for taking part in this project. It’s been fascinating to read your diary entries so far and it’s clear the impact of reading together has been very positive for many families: for the children, for Mumsnetters themselves and for family life in general. There’s just a week of diary entries to go now, so this is just to ask you to keep going and share your thoughts for one last week – they really are so valuable to Egmont.

And thank you for bearing with the book deliveries – for some of you it’s been rather erratic – it is quite challenging with the effect of Covid on services. (Not all of you will have received magazines – it’s been dependent on the age of your child and whether what is publishing would have been appropriate to send. These have come direct from the magazine warehouses so that’s why there has been no mention of Egmont. )

Thank you once again!

With very best wishes

Team Egmont"

@osquito - that's really nice to hear. How old is your ds? My dd is 6 and she's also coming on in leaps and bounds thoughout this project. I feel like we're reading more 'actively' now and she's asking more questions about what words mean. She also seems happier to share reading harder books that she wouldn't have chosen, but that reading to her and ds who's 11. Before this for bedtime stories she'd usually pick Julia Donaldson type picture books, which are great in their own way, but not challenging for her.

And for me... I'm learning to try to be less 'sniffy' about books like 'the naughtiest unicorn' - which I would never have chosen in a shop in a million years, as I dislike the 'fart' humour. But, these books have dd (and sometimes ds and I too) in absolute stitches and actually, especially in these slightly scary times, anything that makes her happy and laughing is more important than my delicate sensibilities! 😂

@leeloo1 DS is 6 (early this month) too. Previously he would browse picture books on his own, but is now reading some chapter books by himself!

Yes, it was kind of painful to watch him point out which of the books he wanted fart jokes and all, but the last couple weeks he would ask me if they were ‘proper stories’ or if there was “something about spiders” etc... And he has surprised me by going through our old book collection and choosing ones he’d never shown an interest in before. I think whereas I used to select all the longer books to buy, now I must/can stand back and let him browse and pick.

We received our sixth and final set of books today... feel quite sad that we're in the last week of this now!

I posted on chat as well, but thought some of you here might be interested- JK Rowling has just announced on Twitter that she is releasing a new children's book, The Ickabog, in serial form on a new website. The first part should be up today at 3pm. She's also asking children to do the illustrations for when it is published in print form later this year.

I am quite ridiculously excited- I saw the announcement and called my girls straight over. I know they won't let me stop reading the books we're on, so this will just have to be an extra!

Hi guys - did anyone else get an email saying their delivery would be arriving tomorrow? We had our last lot of books last week - well we had 12 for Drake and 10 for Harmony (we didnt miss putting in our choices but one week we didnt get any books for her) and this is the last week of completing the diary entries. I am a little confused unless its the books harmony should have had the other week

@pinkspideruk I had an email too!
My daughter has recieved 10 also, and last week my son had a book missing and the Invoice said it was being reprinted, I thought maybe it was them?

@Scoleah to be honest I never checked the invoices but that could well be it

Harmony will be pleased if she gets another book anyways

@pinkspideruk I only checked as the kids are so used to having 2 books everytime that my 3yo kept asking why he had one Missing!
We shall see tomorrow!

@JustineBMumsnet I’m having trouble with the last diary email, all the links to fill in the survey and diaries are saying I have already completed them!

I think the links are a bit temperamental, mine change from being completed to being open again. I know I'd missed a couple of days last week but they were all showing as completed, but I've just checked again and one was open so I pasted my notes in. And I don't know if I've made a mistake with days but tomorrow's is complete. Could be my error though!

@YoureMyWifeNowDave and @JustineBMumsnet - I've just tried to do my surveys for the last couple of days and all the links are saying I've completed them already - including tomorrows! 😂 🙈

I just received our Week 6 books for both kids, but we still didn't receive any Week 5 books for dd.

Both are busily reading their new books though, so I can't complain.

We've had week 6 books for nearly a week. No sign of week 5.

My Week 5 books turned up today!
Had the Macmillan DPD notification last night. Invoice stated Late

Me again, also with the issue of surveys saying they’ve already been taken - as soon as I realised I emailed Justine, then Insight (as she is away) but will just complete what I can and save my notes for when it’s resolved.

@JustineBMumsnet I tried to complete today's survey but its saying i have done it already - all others have been fine but just todays

I'm also having issues with the final week surveys. One of my daughter's links shows all entries completed already and my other daughter's links show the week partially completed but I haven't completed any of them.