McDonald's™ launches reading initiative with the National Literacy Trust
UK Press Releases
6th January 2005
McDonald's™ is this week launching a new reading initiative in restaurants with the support of the National Literacy Trust. The programme, to run throughout January, will see a range of popular children's stories provided as part of the McDonald's Happy Meal™, accompanied by top tips for parents on encouraging their children to read.
The programme will also see the trial of group reading sessions in 50 selected restaurants across the country. These sessions, involving small groups of children and led by an appropriate member of staff, will last for around 20 minutes and are designed to help encourage children to enjoy reading, and motivate them to read for fun.
Neil McClelland, Director of the National Literacy Trust (NLT) commented: "We are very pleased to be working with McDonald's on this initiative. The NLT is focused on raising literacy standards in the UK, and something such as this allows us to communicate with parents and children simultaneously on a huge scale. Through a combination of entertaining stories, practical tips for parents and group reading sessions, we are aiming to help ensure reading outside school can be fun and accessible, whilst reiterating the importance of reading.
This is the latest in a series of reading related offers run by McDonald's as part of the Happy Meal, offering parents a selection of books and Read-a-long CD's for such popular figures as the Mr. Men™, Clifford™ the Big Red Dog and Disney Princess and Disney Heroes. January's programme will include well-loved children's characters including the Mr. Men, Paddington Bear™, Postman Pat™, Arthur™, Noddy™ and Newton's Law™.
McDonald's Marketing manager Jason Dawn said of the launch: "Reading is a focus for the education curriculum. In recognition of this we have run a number of reading related programmes in the last year, which are not only fun and educational for kids, but a useful tool for parents too. With research proving the clear benefits of reading, we are keen to leverage the National Literacy Trust's expertise, and offer something relevant and informative which we hope is something mums and dads will find useful.
He continued: "In addition, we look forward to evaluating the success of the trial reading sessions before considering the opportunity to roll this out to a greater number of restaurants in the future."
The programme runs in restaurants across the UK between 7th-25th January.
Notes to editors
For further information about the programme, or the local reading events, please contact:
McDonald's Press Office UK
020 8700 7320
commscoordinator@uk.mcd.com
Tania Rhodes-Taylor
020 7828 2435
Tania.rhodes-taylor@literacytrust.org.uk
The NLT
The National Literacy Trust (NLT) is an independent charity dedicated to building a nation in which everyone enjoys the skills, self-esteem and pleasures that literacy can bring. We are the only organisation concerned with raising literacy standards for all age groups throughout the UK.
