This document discusses many strategies and evidence around promoting reading for pleasure. It notes that reading is important for educational attainment, health, earnings and more. Key factors that promote reading include: having books available and time to read; being read to; choosing what to read; belonging to a reading community; talking about books; and creating a positive reading environment at home and school. The social and emotional benefits of reading are also emphasized.

1. Reading for Pleasure
strategies to engage C&YP
Joy Court

2. Read to Live
Gustav Flaubert
Reading is not just a matter
of life and death It’s much
more important than that!
Alan Gibbons

3. “There’s not much you can
do if you can’t read well is
there?”
7 year old boy quoted in 2015 Kids and Family
Reading Report

4. Literacy changes lives
“States should ensure that
people of all ages,
regardless of social class,
religion, ethnicity and
gender are provided with
the necessary resources
and opportunities to
develop sufficient and
sustainable literacy skills
and knowledge”
A Declaration of European Citizens’ Right to
Literacy.

5. “Read to Live”
• People who read for 30 mins a day live, on average,
for at least two years longer.Bavishi, Slade and Levy 2016
• 37% of people who rate their health as ‘very poor’
are functionally illiterate compared to 11% with
literacy skills DfBIS,2011
• Reading skills are associated with higher earnings
Crawford and Cribb 2015
• If every child left primary school with the reading
skills they needed, the UK economy could be more
than £32.1billion larger by 2025 Read On. Get On. 2014

7. https://readingagency.org.uk/news/Outcomes%20Framework%20Toolkit_FINAL.pdf

8. Reading for Change
‘being more enthusiastic
about reading and being a
frequent reader was more
of an advantage, on its
own, than having well
educated parents in good
jobs’
PISA Report, OECD. 2002

9. Learning across the Curriculum
“Unless children have learned to read, the rest
of the curriculum is a secret garden to which
they will never enjoy access.”
Schools White Paper, The Importance of Teaching (DFE 2010)
“..children who read for pleasure made more
progress in maths, vocabulary and spelling
between the ages of 10 and 16 than those
who rarely read.”
Sullivan, A and Brown, M.(2013) Centre for
Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education

11. Thinking is
movement
confined to
the brain
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” Sir Richard Steele

12. Crucial to learning
We believe that reading has the power to change lives and that
developing a love of reading in childhood can have a huge
impact on educational attainment and future wellbeing. The
First Minister wants to make sure every child in Scotland has
an equal opportunity to experience the huge benefits that
reading for pleasure brings.
Scottish Book Trust
Children who love reading will read more and, over time, choose
literature which is more demanding and suitably stretching. It
creates a virtuous circle: as the amount a child reads
increases, their reading attainment improves, which in turn
encourages them to read more. All reading makes a
difference, but evidence suggests that reading for pleasure
makes the most
Clark, C and De Zoysa, S. (2011)National Literacy Trust.

13. Reading reluctance
“ We can’t promise that reading books will
always “work”. Not every child has natural
bent or will want to read. But what we can
promise is that it will often work and that we
have to be sure that every child who wants to
read is given that opportunity”
Nick Tucker, The Rough Guide to Children’s Books
“There is no such thing as a reluctant reader. A
reluctant reader is a child for whom an adult
has not found the right book” Paul Jennings

14. The Reads and the Read-Nots
New National Literacy Trust research

15. Attitudes to Reading
To benefit from reading pupils need to:
“work out what reading is good for” Margaret Meek
“People who choose to read, and enjoy doing so, in
their spare time are more likely to reap all of these
wider benefits. It is clear that negative attitudes
towards reading for pleasure have a much wider
negative impact on both the individual and society as
a whole, and therefore it is essential that nationally
we create a more positive attitude towards reading”
Dawn Finch CILIP President.

19. No Child Left Behind
‘Not every child comes from a reading home. Sometimes, these
children are denied the cognitive, social and cultural
advantages that reading for pleasure provides because their
schools do not have a reading culture either. These children
are doubly let down’ www.justreadcampaign.co.uk
‘• Promote family literacy programmes focused on both parents
and children. Their aims should be to help parents improve
their skills and confidence to engage and motivate their
children to both develop their language, and to read for
pleasure.
• Support libraries in maintaining a literate learning environment
and increase their accessibility, particularly for disadvantaged
learners, whether children or adults.’ European
Commission, 2012

21. How to ensure it happens
“Provide:
• A reader friendly environment
• Time to read and be read to
• Time to talk about reading”
Gwen Gawith. Reading Alive
1993

22. Essential Factors in Creating
Readers
• models of reading at home and in the
classroom
• having access to books and other reading
materials
• having someone read aloud
• setting aside time for reading
• being allowed to select reading
• belonging to a reading community
Prof Teri Lesesne, 2017

23. Activity
As I read this list
put your hand up
as soon as you
acknowledge a
point that just
might be true of a
school you know!

24. Preconditions for success
“The visibility and availability of books and other
reading materials are key components of a reading
culture at home, in schools and throughout society.
Schools should provide a wide range of reading
materials that attracts boys and girls of all ages and
interests.
School and public libraries can play a significant role in
helping and inspiring pupils to find reading material
that they can relate to.”
European Commission High Level Literacy report, Sep 2012

25. Schools Governors Should:
• Implement reading across the curriculum
with the notion that every teacher is a reading
teacher.
• Ensure all schools see literacy as their core
business and develop a vision for literacy
within their school.
• Provide financial resources for school and
classroom libraries, computers, etc.
European Commission High Level Literacy report, Sep 2012

26. ‘The way to get
children reading is
to leave the library
door open and let
them read anything
and everything
they want.’
‘This is irrefutable, but sometimes overlooked. The school library
is a foundation for the school’s literacy programmes and a
catalyst for the development of lifelong readers. It is where they
get the spark that turns them from learning to read to enjoying
reading’
New Zealand, National Library Curriculum Services, 2010

27. Research evidence- libraries
Evidence from the USA, Australia and Canada
found that:
• School investment in libraries affects educational
attainment
• More significant than wealth or level of
education in the community
‘Young people with a reading age above the
expected level for their age are twice as likely to
be school library users as their peers with a
reading level below that expected for their age’
National Literacy Trust, Clarke, 2010

28. Social Reading Environment
The role of the environment, a relaxed ethos, and
the space and support for choice and conversation
about texts was also seen to be crucial Cremin and Swann,
2016
You might:
• provide post‐it notes for children to provide
comments on/in books
• collate an anthology of children’s book reviews
with visuals of the books and commentary space
• provide props for playing with/re‐creating stories
www.researchrichpedagogies.org

29. Book Talk
‘Children need frequent, regular and sustained
opportunities to talk together about the books that
they are reading as a whole class. The more experience
they have of talking together like this, the better they
get at making explicit the meanings that a text holds for
them, helping the class as a whole to reach shared
understanding of ideas and issues. Talking about books
is supportive to all readers and writers but is especially
empowering for children who find literacy difficult’
CLPE, Reading for Pleasure : what we know works, 2014

30. High Visibility Reading

32. Time to read
• Reading 15 minutes each day = 105 minutes a week
• 105 minutes a week = 5450 minutes read a year
• This results in 20 books per year read in 15 minutes a
day
• 20 books a year adds up to more than 1000 books in
a lifetime
• Number of words read in 15 minutes a day = 30K per
week
• 30K per week adds up to 1.5 million words a year
• The effect on vocabulary growth can reach as much
as 80% Adapted from: Anderson, R. C., Wilson, P.T., & Fielding, L. G. (1988).

33. Freedom to Choose
‘Free choice is also a powerful motivator for a child to read.
Independently choosing something to read demonstrates true
intent to read. Even if the child’s choice might not be what the
parent would wish for, it should never be discouraged.
As one nine- year- old boy said “If I have chosen it, I know it’s
going to be good”.’ Alison David, Egmont UK
• Choice empowers students
• Valuing student choices values the student
• Choice leads to real and meaningful conversations
• Choice helps establish and deepen relationships
• Choice leads to independence
Skeeters et.al, 2016

34. Print is preferred
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
5-7 8-10 11-13 14-17 18-21
Printed reading
Printed annual
Comic
strip/graphic
novel
E-book
Audio CD
Audio download
Base: all 0-25s Base: all 0-17s using

35. Booktrust CEO
Diana Gerald
“What is it that turns a
child’s head so that they stop
seeing reading as a chore
and begin to see it as one of
the best gifts they’ve been
given?
There are lots of answers to that
question, but one that stands out is
‘the right book’. And by ‘right’ I
mean ‘right for that boy or girl at
that particular time’
Blog post 5.10.2015

36. Time to .....be read to
“We read to children for all the same reasons we
talk with children: to reassure, to entertain, to
bond, to inform or explain, to arouse curiosity,
to inspire. But in reading aloud, we also:
condition the child’s brain to associate reading
with pleasure; create background knowledge;
build vocabulary; [and] provide a reading role
model”
Jim Trelease Read-Aloud Handbook (2013)
Penguin 7th ed. ISBN:978-0143121602

38. Research evidence
‘The experience of being read to is so very powerful
and joyful that it is a key determinant of a child’s
independent reading for pleasure. The most important
thing a parent can do for their child’s reading is to
continue to read to them throughout their childhood,
even when they are capable of reading for themselves.
Independent reading flourishes alongside being read
to.’ Alison David, Egmont UK
Children of all backgrounds who were read to regularly
by their parents at age five performed better in maths,
vocabulary and spelling at age 16 than those who were
not read to’ Sullivan and Brown, 2013

40. Remember
‘Our prisons are full of them, full of those we
have failed. Many remain lonely and
marginalised all their lives. The right book, the
right author, the right parent, the right teacher,
the right librarian, at the right time, might have
saved some of them at least, made the
difference, shone a light into a dark life, turned
that life around.’
Michael Morpurgo Inaugural Booktrust Lecture September 2016