Welcome to RARING READERS, the Patron of Reading blog of Captain’s Close Primary School in Asfordby, Leicestershire. This is where
you’ll find the latest news on what I’m doing with the school and reviews of some brilliant books that I think you might enjoy.
It’s your blog as much as mine, so whether you’re a student, a teacher, a member of staff or a parent at the school, I’d love to hear
from you. You can put a message in the comments section beneath each post or, if you , you can write a guest post.

Saturday 8 November 2014

Introducing Rapid Reviews

One of the things you’ll find on this blog is book reviews. Rather than write about books that I think you might like, I thought I’d make some short videos.

I'm calling these videos Rapid Reviews. Here’s a video I made to introduce them.



If you want to have a go at making your own Rapid Review video about something you love reading, here are 10 tips to get you started.

1: “Rapid” means fast, so your video should be under 2 minutes long.

2: The video can be about any sort of reading material – fiction or non-fiction, a picture book, a novel, a comic, an annual, a joke book, a magazine – as long as it’s something you love reading and you think other children might enjoy.

3: Think about what you want to say and write it down before you record the video.

4: If you’re recording the video on an iPod, smartphone or tablet, make sure you hold the phone or tablet on its side so that the picture is wide like this …


… and not tall and thin. Otherwise it will look like this when it's on the blog.



5: START with a quick description of what the book is about. But if it’s a story, make sure you don’t give away the ending!

6: THEN tell us what makes YOU love this particular book? Think of two or three things that make it special and tell us about them. For example:
  • If it’s a story, tell us something about your favourite character and why you like her or him.
  • If the book is illustrated, show us a favourite picture and tell us why you like it.
  • If it’s a non fiction book, tell us an interesting fact you found out by reading it.
  • If it’s a joke book - tell us your favourite joke!

7: FINISH with a summary of why you love the book. For example:
  • I love this book because it’s incredibly funny and made me laugh my head off.
  • I love this book because it’s packed with surprising facts about an interesting subject.
  • I love this book because it’s such an exciting story and I really cared about the characters.
  • I love this book because it has beautiful pictures and the words are fun to read aloud.

8: Make sure you show the book cover in the video. Hold it up to camera while you're talking or use a close up.

9: Don’t worry about recording everything you want to say in one go. One of the great things about making a video is that you can cut out all the bits you get wrong. So if you make a mistake and say something wrong, just pause for a moment and then try saying it again, until you get it right. Then, when you’ve finished recording the video you can go back and cut out all the mistakes.

10: Remember you want other people to read this book. Enthusiasm is infectious – so make sure your enthusiasm for the book shows on the video!



Once you’ve made a video, there are a couple of ways to send it to me. You will probably need to ask a grown up to help you with this:

If you have a YouTube account:
Upload the video to your YouTube account. Make sure it’s saved as “public” in the video settings so that other people will be able to see it. Then email me a link to the video’s YouTube page.

If you don’t have a youtube account
If you’ve saved the video on your computer, smartphone or tablet and don’t have a YouTube account, you can send the video file to me at patron@scribblestreet.co.uk using the free file transfer service at https://www.wetransfer.com. Make sure you fill in the sender address, so I know who the file is from, and the message box, to let me know that it's a Rapid Review video.  If you're using a smartphone or tablet, you might need to save your video to your photo library before you can send it with WeTransfer.

And remember if you want to send me a written review, a sound recording, a photograph, picture or comic strip that shows how much you love a book, I’d love to have them on this site as well. So email them to me or send them by WeTransfer.

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