SEND book club keeps kids reading through the holidays

A special educational needs and disabilities tutor from Kent is encouraging children to keep reading during the summer holidays. Glynda Cullen runs a free weekly online club from her home in Higham where children can discuss the book Shadow Thieves by Peter Burns. "They're all neurodiverse and they're absolutely fantastic kids", says Cullen. "I just wanted to give something back to them, and what better way to enjoy their company by sitting down and reading a book?" The children join the book club sessions via a Zoom videolink for an hour each week to discuss their own ideas about the characters, plot and settings. "Part of neurodiversity is quite often some difficulty with executive function skills and that can make you feel really overwhelmed", says Cullen. "Often children will look at a book and think, 'oh gosh, that's far too long. I can't manage that.'" She explains that they read the book in chunks and meet up to discuss it every Friday morning. George, 12, who attends the book club, is a fan of Shadow Thieves. "I like the storyline because it brings you into another world," he said. Zane, who is 15, thinks the weekly meetings are "a really cool thing" and that his preferred