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and most varied "target" of the school programme of the Pestalozzischule.
Since 1988 teachers and parents' committee
have been working on it. It is our aim to use in our school the
varied and interesting findings and experiences which have been
gained over the last 35 years in connection with the 
development of reading skills
and writing skills. At the same time we would like to share our
experience in this area with others and thus spread these ideas.
It is our priority to enable children to be motivated and self-sufficient readers. To prevent illiteracy it is important that children do read not only at school. Often they lose their skills soon after leaving school. The task of school is therefore together with the parents to help the children to read voluntarily.
This means that they get used to self-motivated and regular reading and that they use the public library and bookshops. The more varied and motivating the children´s reading experience the easier it is to reach this aim. In the course of time this has developed into a series of opportunities and arrangements regularly on offer.
I wrote a summary with examples at our school which was published by Kultusministerium North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf 1996.
Definitions: (at the moment available only in German)
* story-calendar: Calendar
with the children´s own stories
** reading-café: Annual event
at the town-public-library where the children read their own
stories for other pupils and parents
*** storybook-cinema: storybook on slides (in Germany available from FWU,
München)
**** reading club: Permanent group of pupils who meet to experience books in a different way different way through arts, crafts, cookery etc.
*****children´s own books: children write own texts, free texts, poesie or invented after having read a book at school, the texts are printed, copied, illustrated and in the end each child gets a book of that often the first book in its life.