Delivered at the LIASA-SLYSIG conference 2016

1. Are we restricting reading? Setting reading free.
Slide: Overview
Good morning everyone. My name is John Iona and I am going to be talking today on the theme of
reading for pleasure, thinking about whether we, or schools in general, might at times be guilty of
restricting reading for pleasure, and the ways in which we might go about avoiding this.
Slide: Introduction
I have worked at OAE since 2008, joining the school in its’ second year of existence at which point
we had just two year groups, year 7 and 8. This was my second school, having worked in an FE
college Library for three years and a secondary school in special measures the year before moving to
this post.
The task at hand was to grow the Library year on year, ensuring the resources met the needs of
pupils and teachers in terms of curriculum and extra-curricular interests, alongside implementing
initiatives that would embed the Library within the life of the school. It isn’t often that opportunities
like this come along where you get to start a new Library from the beginning, in what was a
progressive school that was doing interesting things like using a competency-based curriculum. So
while it would be a challenge, it was an exciting one where I had a blank canvas on which to work
and develop my ideas.
Slide: Before
You can see here how I began with a Library mostly made up of empty bookshelves, low fixed-
wooden shelving and basically a room to fill and build on.
Slide: After
We now have a fully stocked library of books, journals and magazines, a class area with IWB, and 30
computers that meets the demands of staff and students, the curriculum and extra-curricular
interests, is crazy-busy at lunchtime, and is open for pupils when they need it.
Slide: Professional History
In terms of my qualifications, once I had decided that the Library sector is where I wanted to develop
my career, I studied for my professional qualification MA by distance-learning, part-time in order to
then go on to Charter in 2013. I felt that it was important to have a grounding in the profession
through academic study, to supplement the experience I was gaining from doing the job. I also feel
the value of Chartering would be a way of gaining formal accreditation for the work that I was doing,
in order to improve my status within my school, as well as in the profession generally.
As part of my Chartership I gained nomination for the CILIP SLG National Committee, and served for
five years on the committee until January this year. This has been a very valuable experience, and
the chance to engage in and contribute to the bigger issues that effect school librarians across the
country.
2013 was also the year that I was awarded the School Library Association SLYA, and this was an
honour to receive in recognition of the work I was doing.

2. I also blog on wordpress, when I have the time. I use blogging as a way of reflecting on particular
activities, issues, initiatives as part of my reflective practice. I started this during my chartership and
have tried to continue it and, though I don’t blog regularly, I still find it a useful and rewarding
process for reflection.
Slide: What should the Library be?
So, that’s more than enough about who I am. Time to get back to Libraries. I think that we can
probably all agree that school libraries, and indeed libraries in general, are a gateway to discovery
and learning. We are a cross-curricular resource serving needs across our schools, with a focus on
the whole of facilitating the development of reading for pleasure and academic study, and all the
skills that go with these habits, in order to improve the lives and achievements of our pupils.
We are central to pushing the reading for pleasure agenda in our schools, as the Library is the
natural place to facilitate this, and our skills and knowledge essential for ensuring it gets the
recognition and place in schools that it requires.
Slide: What are the challenges in schools?
When I ask whether we are restricting reading, it is worth considering the challenges, or barriers, in
place that have an impact on access to reading and reading for pleasure, its’ perceived importance in
education, and what might challenge the value that is placed on it within the context of a typical
secondary school. So I think that this pyramid attempts to portray the various building blocks, or
obstacles, that we might encounter.
For teachers, their lesson-loading, planning, marking, meetings, duties mean that venturing outside
of their day-to-day routines can be very difficult when their own workloads can be so demanding.
They can lack the opportunity to explore the benefits of using the Library within their curriculum,
and how it can support and extend their teaching and their pupils’ learning. How reading around
their subject, for pleasure or for specific tasks, can begin to join up and embed knowledge and
understanding. Spark interest. Light fires.
For our pupils, their timetables are full of lessons, with free time at a premium in their school day a
break/lunchtimes. So opportunity to come to the Library will only come for them if they choose to
do so during their limited free time, or if it is arranged for them by their teachers. Those who
wouldn’t normally come to the Library in their own time will then never come in if their teachers do
not see the value of using the Library in their subject teaching. Pupils themselves have a range of
attitudes to reading for pleasure, with many in my school having lower reading age than actual age,
and so confidence in reading books independently is low and attitudes toward it can be negative.
“Sir I don’t like reading”, “reading is boring”. This is not across the board of course, but when reading
has been reduced in their primary education to something to be assessed, the ways in which they
have accessed or been exposed to books can have a detrimental effect on their attitudes and the
ways in which they perceive reading for pleasure. In their general day-to-day lives, if they haven’t
developed an interest in reading in their own time, their lives outside of school are filled with other
distractions, reading role-models in the home might be lacking, and so school is the only space in
which they are exposed to books. And if this has been generally for assessment purposes, there is
already a barrier there.
The pressure of evidence of learning, the progress of pupils, the covering of content in preparation
for assessments and exams adds a further barrier to the perceived importance of reading. For

3. teachers, their focus is rightly on the progress of our students. Opportunities to build wider reading
and research can be limited and perhaps seen as a luxury or a distraction. For senior management,
the pressure of league tables and student numbers, and therefore the priority of results and
achievement can have a trickle-down effect meaning an enriched curriculum takes second-place.
The need for data, progress and monitoring can supersede the more unmeasurable benefits of
softer skills, positive attitudes and passion for discovery. When reading for pleasure does become a
priority it is usually linked with a drive to raise literacy, which can bring with it the necessary need
for measurable progress and outcomes on literacy levels of pupils. In this sense, reading
schemes/programmes might be seen as an appropriate tool with which to embed a reading for
pleasure agenda in order to raise literacy level. However these can bring with them their own
problems and shortcomings.
Finally, it is time that lies at the centre, or the peak, as the biggest challenge to exposing our pupils
to opportunities to read for pleasure in order to develop and extend their learning and
personal/social/mental development. Any teacher you would talk to would likely agree that reading
lies at the heart of learning. It facilitates independent learning, develops thought and
understanding, and broadens knowledge and experience. If there was time and opportunity for it in
their lessons, the school day, week, curriculum, then they would agree that it is “a good thing”. And
so the final challenge, or perhaps only challenge, is linking the importance of accessing and using
wider reading to the development and achievement of pupils in their subjects.
Slide: What can we do to address this?
Finding ways to link the Library to school and department priorities and development plans.
Embed the Library within the curriculum and culture of the school
Implement our own layers of reward/recognition around reading for pleasure
Linking further reading/books to curriculum
Knowing our students through conversation in order to recommend books to them and scaffold their
selections and choice of books.
All of these actions can have an impact on addressing the limitations we have that restrict reading in
our schools, and so I will cover how I have sought to put some of these into practice within my
school,
Slide: What have I done?
So, what have I done? I have attempted to address the reading for pleasure agenda in my school by
implementing a range of different initiatives that facilitate, recognise and value this. Lots if not all of
them will be familiar to you, and so I don’t propose to be saying anything particularly progressive,
but rather unpicking the value of various activities, the potential shortcomings and the ways in
which they can have an impact.
I’m going to begin by discussing the four in bold, which are how I use Library lessons, the literacy
drive at Oasis Enfield in 2012-14 which brought with it AR and DEAR time. Once I have covered
those I will move on to looking at the second group of initiatives sitting below these, which include …

4. Slide: Library Lessons
In order to put reading for pleasure on the agenda, I have attempted to embed it within the school
in a number of ways.
Working with the English department from the beginning, I ensured that one of the five timetable
weekly English lessons was in the Library and that this should be seen as an opportunity for pupils to
read for pleasure, borrow/return books, be exposed to new authors books. The national curriculum
states that “Teachers should develop pupils’ reading”… “pupils should be encouraged to read for
pleasure. Schools should do everything to promote wider reading. They should provide library
facilities and set ambitious expectations for reading at home.” Now this expectation from the
government is a useful hook upon which to hang Library lessons and access to reading for pleasure,
in particular with the Eng dept. So when having conversations with the head of Eng, or the key stage
three coordinator, about the importance of Library lessons, their value and what they should seek to
do, being able to refer to how we can go about fulfilling this part of the curriculum would seem to be
a valuable way of defining how we can work together to meet these demands. If Library lessons are
done right, and implemented effectively, it means the Eng dept can refer to them in their
development plan and reviews as evidence of how they are fulfilling this part of the curriculum.
Slide: Library Lessons
Year 7 and 8 weekly lesson and they normally take the form of some time for independent reading in
one half of the lesson, and a more structured activity in the other half. We try to habituate the
carrying of a reading book at all times, and so pupils should come to their English and library lesson
with a book that they have chosen and want to read, so that if independent reading time is the first
activity, which it normally is, then they can get straight on with that task.
I run the usual induction to the Library which takes the form of lessons, activities and a module
booklet
I run a module on research skills and information literacy, which supports the learning in their
English curriculum. The topic used in World War Two linking in with the English class reader at that
time, which is Boy in the striped PJs. This is a good chance to teaching information literacy, library
and research skills in a meaningful context.
Each year group will read at least one novel as a class, tackling books such as A Monster Calls, The
Weight of Water, and Abomination. This helps to ensure that pupils are accessing new literature that
they won’t necessarily read in their English lessons and that pupils are getting the chance to access
wider reading as stated in the curriculum. The choice of reader will usually depend on the individual
class, their particular needs and abilities, although certain books will be read with all classes in a year
group to ensure consistency and to stretch their reading.
Through the year, with specific classes, we will run modules that focus on small, pupil-led, group
reading. These sessions allow pupils to a broader choice of texts, give them independence of choice
with the support of the teacher and their peers, as well as encouraging them to take responsibility
for their learning in these lessons.
Finally, we use reading record booklets, in which pupils log their reading activities and complete
activities after finishing a book. This is a useful way of evidencing their reading, and show

5. engagement with the books that they have enjoyed, as well as a chance for us to monitor and
reward.
So that’s a general overview of library lessons, next Accelerated Reader….
Slide: Literacy Drive: Accelerated Reader
Accelerated Reader is a reading programme in which firstly, pupils’ reading levels are assessed using
an online assessment tool called a Star Test. The assessment for each pupil gives staff a reading age
for that pupil along with a Zone of Proximinal Development score, which is a number-based range,
going from 0-12. So a student such as Abigail might sit the assessment and be found to have a
reading age of 9 years and 10 months, while in year seven would have been eleven at the time, and
have a ZPD of 3.2-5.1 and should therefore choose a reading book that lies within her ZPD range.
This number then relates to books that are on the AR scheme, which each have an individual AR
level based on factors such as the complexity of the novel, word and sentence length. So for
example, A Monster Calls has an AR level of 4.8, The Lie Tree 6.4 and The Boy in the Dress 4.2,
meaning Abi should be able to cope with reading AMC and The Boy… but would potentially struggle
with The Lie Tree and would probably be actively discouraged from reading it. Once they have read
a book, they can sit a quiz, which is made up of multiple choice questions about the book that they
have read. The quiz tests their understanding of events in the book, and they get to see their result
at the end of the quiz which is also recorded on their record for staff to see when they look at their
AR reading record.
Slide: Adv and Disadv
So, what did I find to be the advantages of AR?
Provides hard data, and we know how management love a bit of data. It tracks reading levels and
progress through sitting the Star Test assessment at various points in the year. It also records their
achievements in the quizzes that they sit through the year, thereby tracking their reading, providing
a record of the books read, and how well they have done on each quiz. Which is valuable data to
have, to interrogate, to base intervention upon and to be able to present as demonstrable impact.
Forms a basis for reward… you can use achievement in quizzes as a chance to reward success. You
can build challenges into the scheme whereby passing a certain number of quizzes may bring further
recognition, or access to prizes. This is a great way to encourage pupils, particularly those who
perhaps don’t like reading, to read more. Rewarding their achievements is a particularly good way
of recognising their efforts and engagement in reading.
Guides pupils to appropriate books… lots of pupils, particularly non-readers, say that they have
problems finding books that they like and so the comfort of using AR levels to help them choose
books that won’t be too difficult can be a useful way of finding something to read.
However, in my experience there are some drawbacks to the scheme too and I think it is useful to be
aware of them.
Star test results seem inconsistent, meaning reliability of data can be a problem
Star testing assesses pupils’ reading ability and gives a NC level for reading; estimated reading age;
and a Zone of Proximinal Development (ZPD) score. Unfortunately pupils’ results from the tests
were shown to go down as well as up (this can never actually be the case). RenLearn point to a

6. number of factors, such as distractions on the day, lack of focus, and suggest more Star tests are
carried out. However it can be difficult therefore, when trying to use data to track progress, to be
able to argue impact if results become inconsistent. There can then be an issue of reliability and this
can lead to an element of distrust in the data, particularly from English teachers, and a resulting
disengagement.
Book levels can be dubious
Pupils choose books according to the AR ZPD score. The levels chosen for some books when
compared with others, seem too varied. Levels are based on specific elements within the text, not
taking in to account other factors such as themes, narrative techniques, structures etc. And so if
pupils are selecting books based on the book level, without help or guidance from their Librarian or
teacher, there are times when the book really doesn’t suit the reader.
Limits reading selection
Not all books are part of the AR scheme. Pupils will not get recognition for books that they want to
read that do not have quizzes. When this scheme is implemented rigorously, our pupils are not
encouraged to read widely and for pleasure. To pick up a book because they want to read it,
because they like the look/sound of it. When this is then associated with reading in the Library, it
can become detrimental to pupils’ attitudes towards reading in the Library as a restrictive activity to
be tested.
The conversations I have overheard of staff with pupils regarding the books pupils choose have been
quite difficult to listen to at times. When teachers tell pupils they cannot read a book because it is
“too easy” or “too difficult” it serves to straightjacket choice, independence and reduce the activity
to a testing-ground to be undertaken, rather than an activity of pleasure.
Reduces reading for pleasure to comprehension and recall
The quizzes test recall of events in the story, therefore only rewarding pupils on their ability to
understand the story and remember events that questions ask about. There is no capacity to
include critical emotional engagement with the book
No creative engagement/outcomes
AR is built around test and reward only. Reading success is reduced to, and celebrated upon, the
passing of a comprehension test and so I believe that there needs to be further layers of activity
developed to overlay the programme that recognise the benefits and rewards of reading for
pleasure.
Takes careful monitoring
To be successful, someone has to regularly check the progress and achievements data of pupils, and
encourage engagement. It needs regular conversations with pupils regarding their reading and
progress, and reports and data need to be circulated with colleagues, to encourage wider
participation and encouragement, particularly with those students not engaging in reading a
quizzing. This is fine if all the teachers of each class on the scheme are involved, but if this falls to
the Librarian only, it is a huge task that never gets fully carried out.

7. Becomes a “Library thing”
There is a real danger that AR becomes the Library’s sole responsibility. Without the support,
encouragement and endorsement of other staff/SLT (the English department at the very least) the
scheme will never be fully embedded and it can fall into the trap of becoming a niche project, not
really taken seriously by pupils or staff.
Slide: Literacy Drive: DEAR Time
Independent reading within curriculum time
A number of ways of implementing this initiative… many schools have DEAR time as regular 20-
minute independent reading time, usually on a weekly basis where everyone in the school will read
their own book at the same time. It is usually either randomly carried out, during a particular lesson
agreed on for that week, or regularly in the same slot. It is a great way of signifying the importance
of reading for pleasure, as pupils carry with them their own book or reading material, and staff also
read and so model the activity too.
How did we do it?
It was implemented as a timetabled 60-minute lesson for pupils in year 7 and 8, and staffed by non-
specialist teachers as part of the drive to develop literacy and reading for pleasure. The presence of
non-English teaching staff would serve to highlight the cross-curricular nature and importance of
reading. However, while the usual focus is on independent reading and free choice, a whole 60-
minute lesson would obviously be a real challenge to fill purely with this activity. Most adults
struggle with reading on their own for a whole hour, let alone 30 eleven year olds in a classroom. So
we made these lessons a mixture of independent reading, class-readers, literacy skills booklets, and
non-fiction activities using First News publication. This helped to break up the lesson time with
some focussed activities that still held reading at the core of them, didn’t rely on specialist
knowledge of literacy and English teaching skills, and avoided the danger of trying to keep a class of
youngsters reading in silence for an hour.
Slide: What were the outcomes?
The sustainability of these initiatives was, unfortunately, lacking. They were part of the ADP and
driven by one of the APs however, when there was a personnel change in SLT in 2014, and the
Academy’s priorities shifted, these interventions were shelved. AR itself was not wholly supported
by colleagues and embedding it within Library lessons was patchy, and therefore its impact was not
as evident as it might have been. Where it did work was with pupils who were already readers at
the top-end of the ability scale. They were already reading for pleasure and enjoyed the fact that
their regular reading was getting recognition through quizzing and rewards. Also, at the bottom end
of the scale with our weakest readers, some of them enjoyed the fact that they were able to read
short, simple books that they could finish in a short space of time, take a quiz and see how well they
had done in reading and understanding what they had read. However this only worked with those
pupils in small classes where there may also be additional support from a Teaching Assistant too, so
that the reading could be very focussed and well-supported. Those pupils who were already
disengaged from reading for pleasure were not inspired to read purely based on this scheme, and so

8. a large proportion of pupils across the two year groups involved were not actively engaging in the
programme.
DEAR time, while a good idea, created a huge amount of work in co-ordinating and managing
resources for staff to deliver in these lessons, and replicated in a number of ways work that was
already taking place in regular Library lessons. If DEAR time, in its original sense, was implemented
into Library lessons with non-specialist teachers being present as reading role-models, then this
would have been the ideal, most appropriate form that these sessions could have taken. I believe
that these initiatives fell into the trap of formalising reading for pleasure in a way that turns it into a
chore to be endured by students and, in the end, the staff delivering them. They restricted reading
by taking the elements of freedom of discovery, independence and gratification out of reading and
instead associate it with a lesson, or programme, in which they are assessed and monitored without
the benefits of the former being recognised or developed.
Before I move on to looking at the ways in which I have attempted to liberate reading, I thought it
would be a good chance to pause here, give you a couple of minutes to talk with the people around
you about what you’ve heard so far, and then ask any questions at this stage…
Slide: Liberating Reading
So, in my experience, our role has to be to liberate reading in the sense that it brings access to books
and reading for pleasure and attempt to integrate with, supplement and extend the more stringent
initiatives that might be put into place. However these can still be implemented in such a way that
they provide evidence and data of engagement and achievement.
The reading games was a simple way of getting pupils to write reviews on the books that they were
reading. Pupils were given a ‘loyalty-card’ style card which would be stamped every time they
handed in a book review postcard with the book they were returning. For every five stamps
collected a small prize. I set up a spreadsheet for each class of pupils in the school, which would be
updated weekly with the number of postcards pupils submitted to ensure there was a data trail of
evidence of engagement. This was a nice way for pupils to share their thoughts about the books
they were reading and liked, and the postcards would be displayed in the Library and added to
plasmas slideshow so seen across the school too. It helped to add another layer to the quizzing that
was taking place on AR, so that pupils could show engagement in the books to staff and students,
and express and share their opinions.
G&T book clubs
When the Academy’s focus fell on the progress of our more-able, or G&T pupils, I saw that as an
opportunity to link the work I do with book clubs. There is a shift in UK education underway where
achievement is being measured on progress, rather than the traditional A*-C grades, and it is being
seen that those pupils coming in with top-end SATs results at KS2 are not necessarily going on to
achieve the high results at KS4 that they might be expected to attain. So schools are looking at their
provision for those pupils, how to extend, stretch and challenge their education at secondary level in
order to begin addressing this issue. I run two book clubs, one for KS3 and the other KS4 pupils and
so it seemed the perfect opportunity to tailor these extra-curricular activities by targeting through
personal invitation pupils on the G&T register, and then engage them with books activities and
discussion that will take them out of their comfort zone and that they won’t have encountered
before. For example, the KS3 book club visited an author talk by French author Marie-Aude Murail,

9. who they would never have encountered before and is not widely published in English. They also
get access to book proofs that are sent to me, getting first taste of books that aren’t published yet
and sometimes, with a little encouragement, send feedback to the publisher and author. My work
with G&T pupils was broadened out this year when we took a group of them from years seven and
eight, some of whom were part of the book club, to the British Library for a workshop on Digital
Skills.
In particular though, the KS4 Breakfast Book Club, while being small, was made up of a core group of
four pupils who were prolific readers and high-achievers. You can see here a selection of some of
the books we have read over the last two years, from 1984 to the performance poet Kate Tempest,
and along the way some non-fiction including ‘How to be a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran and ‘The
Establishment’ by Owen Jones. The chance to challenge them with Literature with a capital L, as well
as the work of modern novelists and poets, prize-winners, and the kind of books they would
encounter at A-level and undergraduate courses was a rewarding opportunity for me, and meant
that they were encountering work that they would never be introduced to at their age within the
curriculum. Add to this the bonus of contributing toward a strand of the ADP and I think everyone
wins.
Staff Surprise Summer/Christmas reads
One of the key issues in our Academy is that pupils do not read for pleasure outside of school, do not
see reading as something that involves them and lack reading role-models in the home or amongst
their friends. In order to promote reading as a pleasurable activity we try to take every opportunity
provide role-models from the staff to show reading as an activity that all people participate in. So,
one of my more successful initiatives has been the Surprise Summer Reads, where staff volunteer to
take a mystery book home for the Summer holiday, read it and write a review. I’ve experimented
with a few different iterations of this, with me choosing a book for the staff; with pupils choosing a
teacher and a book they want that teacher to read; and finally with me giving the staff all the same
book, one which pupils read in year seven in Library lessons. All of these options give staff the
chance to read a book that at least one other pupil, if not virtually all the pupils in the school, will
have read, and therefore the chance to have dialogue with them and discuss the book they have
read. The reviews that they write then form part of a display which everyone will be able to see and
so promote the fact that staff across the school have also read the novel that pupils are reading or
have read in their lessons.
Staff favourite books
In addition to this, we use door signs on classroom and office doors across the academy displaying
staff’s favourite books. From the Head-teacher down, it was important that all staff submitted their
favourite book with their reasons why, so that these could be see across the school, no matter
where you were. Again, this is a way of eliciting conversations between staff and students, and
promoting adults within the school as role-models of reading for pleasure. And it’s really interesting
reading about what different people of the school read and what they thought about their favourite
books.
Conclusions

10. So when I ask whether we are restricting reading, I ask this question of schools as a whole. With the
constraints from curriculum, the pressure of targets and evidence-based progress, and the demands
on time and workload, it can be difficult to identify opportunity for flexibility and extending pupil’s
educational diet. There are times when attempts to address this can actually restrict reading, as I’ve
touched on. However I think that it is our role to work with these pressures, understand the
limitations of particular initiatives, manage expectations and navigate ways in which to implement
additional layers of recognition, reward, and encouragement for our pupils to read widely and tackle
new and challenging texts.
Presented by John Iona @LIASA-SLYSIG Conference 2016.
Blog: Jionalibrarian.wordpress.com Email: mrjohniona@gmail.com