Features

The BBC RaW campaign is aiming to make reading and writing easier and more fun for kids to get involved in alongside their parents.

They are holding a number of workshops across Suffolk, and I went along to one held at Meadow Primary School in Lowestoft. You can hear the report using the link below.

A group of 18 enthusiastic parents and grandparents were there, to be put through their paces by Chris Bennett, who was the poet and professional story teller in charge of the session.

The main thing that Chris was trying to get over to the parents all through the session was how easy it was to create a fun, personalised tale for their children.

The day's workshop only lasted 2 hours but in that time, the 18 adults and 18 children managed to produce 18 unique stories and almost as many hand made (and coloured) comic strips.

Each stage was broken down into very short pieces. Firstly, the adults were told to come up with a name for the story's main character. Chris encouraged them to use their own children in the story along with an animal and an adjective.

So some of the heroes we had were Nathan the Nutty Newt, Kieran the Crazy Kangaroo and Ben the Bionic Bee.

Following this, the groups had just ten seconds to draw a picture of their protagonist, another 5 seconds to come up with some adjectives and the parents and children were asked to just write down the first word they thought of.

Using just these few clues, everyone then got to down to work. Chris gave them just 10 minutes to come up with 12 sentences to make a story that takes between one and two minutes to tell.

But they all managed it - and 14 were so proud of the tale they created that they entered it into the BBC's RaW story competition.