Manchester City Academy Players Excel In National Literacy Competition

WOOLWICH, U.K. - May 12, 2017 - PRLog -- More than 40,000 students in years one to nine from more than 400 schools and many Premier League clubs around the UK participated in Word Mania 2017, a competition based on a digital game where players are challenged to create as many words as possible from 15 randomly generated letters in three minutes. It tests and develops various literacy skills including word knowledge, use of language units, spelling and vocabulary.

The Academy students received a monetary prize of £200, which they have donated to the Club's local community foundation, City in the Community, who run a range of education programmes for local people in the area.

Mark Adams, head of education at Manchester City, said:

"At Manchester City, we believe education is a key element of a player's development. It is important for every player to perform well both on and off the pitch and we strive to provide the resources and experiences they need to excel in any environment.

"Since participating in the competition, we have noticed an improvement in the literacy skills of those students using the platform, especially in the areas of spelling and grammar. We are extremely proud of all their achievements and we are delighted that we can use our success in the competition to support City in the Community's education programmes."

Manchester City's Academy first began using LiteracyPlanet as an English teaching resource when the Premier League invited all its youth development academies to participate in the national competition.

LiteracyPlanet UK's Commercial Director David Weston said the company was impressed by the level of engagement in the competition and those who topped the leaderboards should be proud:

"The response to Word Mania from so many schools and clubs around the UK has been exciting. It's a great way to get students engaged in practicing their key literacy skills.

"Word building is a complex literacy skill, and with so many schools and clubs competing Manchester City's players should certainly be proud of their achievement!"

Mike Green, head of City in the Community, who are celebrating their thirtieth anniversary this season, added:

"City in the Community provides a variety of educational programmes across the city of Manchester and we are delighted to have to support of the players across all our community projects. This donation from the Manchester City boys' academy will help us continue growing our range of literacy and reading programmes, which we deliver in local schools across Manchester every day."


About LiteracyPlanet

LiteracyPlanet is a leading online literacy education resource for students four to 15 years of age. Developed by educators and aligned to the National Curriculum and Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence, it includes thousands of exercises for pre-reading, phonics, sight words, reading, spelling, comprehension, grammar, punctuation and writing. LiteracyPlanet is suitable for students of all abilities and adaptable for differentiated learning. It is endorsed by teachers and researchers, and proven to improve literacy learning outcomes. www.literacyplanet.co.uk