Novel website opens the door to Welsh literature for youngsters during lockdown
Morgan DafyddA PhD student from Ā鶹AV has launched a new website to open the door to Welsh literature for youngsters during the coronavirus crisis.
The created by Morgan Dafydd offers bilingual reviews of Welsh childrenās books to help them develop a passion for reading in Welsh.
The former primary school teacher said children studying Welsh as a second language often struggled to grasp Welsh literature which affected their confidence and enjoyment of reading.
The aim of the website is to make it easier for parents and young people to find the perfect book.
The new venture has been launched amid the Coronavirus lockdown as parents struggle to entertain their children and deliver home-based learning.
It features a wealth of resources including useful reviews, guest vlogs and educational tools and introduces children to an array of exciting authors.
Welsh-speaking Morgan, 29, who lives in Llandudno Junction, is currently studying a PhD at Ā鶹AVās School of Education and Human Development.
The three-year research project, funded through a scholarship from the and match-funded by Ā鶹AV, will examine the extent to which different types of bilingual books contribute to childrenās enjoyment, understanding and willingness to read in Welsh as well as improve their vocabulary.
Morgan, who previously taught at Ysgol Dolgarrog in the Conwy Valley before it closed, has created the free resource in support of the Welsh Governmentās ambitious goal to achieve a million Welsh speakers by 2050.
āItās all stemmed from my background as a teacher,ā he explained.
āT³ó±šre are lots of children and parents who donāt engage with Welsh literature at all. It can be a confusing area for them.
āT³ó±š children I taught were from non-Welsh speaking backgrounds and they found reading in Welsh difficult. I once did a show of hands and nobody in the class had ever been to the Welsh book shop down the road.
āI did a little bit of work in the classroom without really thinking about it, making adjustments to the teaching resources and that really has become the basis of my PhD.
āI thought this website would be a good idea to specifically support children and their parents on which books to buy. Itās more than developing comprehension itās about getting them to enjoy Welsh books more and encouraging them to read for pleasure.
āItās essentially a āgood readsā website providing reviews of Welsh language books for children and young people.ā
Morgan grew up in Conwy, attending Ysgol Maelgwn in Llandudno Junction and later Ysgol y Creuddyn. Following school, he completed a degree in Geography at Ā鶹AV before going on to do a PGCE teaching course there. He then studied a mastersā degree in Educational Practice whilst teaching as part of a government-backed programme.
While still teaching, Morgan worked with Prof Enlli MĆ“n Thomas from Bangorās School of Education and Human Development to put together a PhD proposal for a Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol grant.
The topic was inspired by an influential report commissioned by the Welsh Books Council in 2017 and written by Dr Siwan Rosser, from Cardiff Universityās School of Welsh, which looked at the Welsh books industry in its entirety. It set out a number of recommendations including the need to research the nature and purpose of bilingual books further.
āI feel very passionate about this,ā said Morgan, who volunteers as a crewman for the RNLI in Conwy.
āReading plays a big part in everything. You can normally tell the children who read and those who donāt.
āT³ó±šreās a lot of pressure on schools to deliver a million Welsh speakers by 2050. Yet we know that second language speakers are often unwilling to use Welsh for various reasons, which limits children's experiences of using Welsh conversationally with others.
āUnlike speaking, reading is a solitary activity that does not require a conversational partner, whilst still offering new vocabulary and phrases for the learner to explore.
āHowever, at the moment, Welsh literature is something a lot of children and young people only associate with school and they would not necessarily buy and read in their own time. We want to get them enjoying it.
āWhen I was teaching, Iād swap certain difficult Welsh words with English words so you get a kind of bilingual mishmash book in the hope that it makes it easier to understand. There are really difficult Welsh words which we donāt use very often that we find in Welsh books.
āMy aim is to help children understand the book so they enjoy what theyāre reading and are reading for pleasure.ā
Morgan built the website with the help of his partner, Llio Mai Hughes, a Welsh language officer with Gwynedd Council, but without any external funding.
He has already amassed 100 reviews including helpful tips such as content and difficulty level to help children get started and the lockdown restrictions provided the perfect opportunity to launch. He hopes to continue improving the service through donations.
āT³ó±š have been very supportive and we are grateful to them for their help.
āWe are currently looking for funding for the website, itās all being done voluntarily,ā he said.
āI ideally want children and young people themselves to contribute to the website. Children would much prefer to read content from their peers although parents appreciate my reviews. This is something I want to develop further.
āItās still early days and the message is still getting out there. This is a time where people are stuck at home and thereās little else to do so itās a good time to try and get children reading a book, especially if they donāt normally read.
āWeāre plugging all the new books as well as the industry and publishers, and drawing some attention to the older classics too.
āMy plan is to increase the number of book reviews on there so it becomes the biggest collection of bilingual Welsh language book reviews on the web ā it possibly already is. Iād like it to be known as the āgo-toā place.ā
The website is available at:
Publication date: 21 May 2020