Call for firms to fund reluctant reader project

A retired head teacher who wrote a book to encourage reluctant readers is seeking companies to sponsor copies for schools.

Kevin Bullock, 64, from Fornham St Martin, invested £1,000 to publish The Animals of Blipp, illustrated by his niece, in 2017 with all the profits going to East of England Children's Hospices.

It raised £400 in the first week, but now he wants the book to do even more good and several companies have already backed his idea by paying £36 to buy six books and a teacher worksheet for their local primary school.

Kevin has first hand experience of struggling as a poor reader because he left school at 15 with no qualifications and barely able to read and write.

"It took me 10 years of remedial work and evening classes to get to an acceptable level of literacy," he said. "I've been lucky, many are not."

He went on to become a primary school head at Fordham, a National Leader in Education and advisor to the Cabinet Office.

The Animals of Blipp, in which animals who are fed-up with life on Earth escape in a rocket to the planet Blipp, is written in verse and Kevin says studies have shown that helps reluctant readers persevere.

In his appeal to companies he says: "National tests and teacher asessment highlight that pupils in certain socio-economic groups are falling way behind in reading/writing and this can have an adverse effect on their behaviour, general attitude towards education and overall life opportunities."

All the books bought for school in this way carry a label inside giving the name of the company who sponsored them. Anyone interested in sponsoring should email him at kevinbullock@mail.com