Research School Network: DEVELOPING A WHOLE SCHOOL READING FOR PLEASURE APPROACH – BLOG 2, JANUARY 2019 Lisa Hesmondhalgh, ELE for Aspirer, shares how she has put the evidence about Reading for Pleasure into action.

PUTTING EVIDENCE TO WORK – Reading for Pleasure (RfP)

Five schools from the Aspire Educational Trust are now a term into working with myself, Megan Dixon (Director of the Aspirer Research School) and Professor Teresa Cremin in developing a whole school CPD research and development programme for Reading for Pleasure (RfP). Lead teachers from Puss Bank Primary School, Holmes Chapel Primary School, Victoria Road Primary School, Parkroyal Community School and Peover Superior Primary School are engaging in the most recent research around RfP in order to affect whole school culture change.

Our initial meeting took place on in September where we began to unpick Building Communities of Engaged Readers
by Teresa Cremin, Marilyn Mottram, Fiona M. Collins, Sacha Powell and Kimberly Stafford. We then planned a joint development day with the five schools involved in the project.

At the end of October 2018, the joint development day took place with Professor Teresa Cremin delivering a key note speech as well as a range of collaborative workshops led by myself, Megan Dixon and Emily Crumbleholme (ELE for the Aspirer Research School). The day involved bringing together 120 individuals from across the five schools, including teachers, teaching assistants, senior leaders and head teachers to launch RfP pedagogy:

1. Considerable knowledge of children’s literature and other texts

Knowledge of children’s reading practices

A RfP pedagogy, encompassing:
- social reading environments
- reading aloud
- informal book talk, inside-text talk and recommendations
- independent reading time

To be Reading Teachers – teachers who read and readers who teach

To develop reciprocal and interactive reading communities. (Cremin et al., 2014)

All the staff attending were asked to keep a personal reflective log of the day and time was planned at the end of the day for the senior leaders present to pull together key thoughts and actions from each school which could then be added to the RfP Lead Teachers (LTs) action plans.

Perhaps one of the most surprisingly successful elements of the day was the ​‘book pitch’. LTs shared a range of texts (poetry, magazines, non-fiction etc.) in a market place style pitch. Noisy and chaotic…. but the buzz around this session was amazing. The LTs, who at first were reticent about sharing a part of themselves with people they didn’t know, loved sharing their favourite books.

Following the hugely successful launch, the focus for the autumn term has been on refining each school’s action plan. We used the implementation guidance report from the EEF https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/a‑schools-guide-to-implementation/
as a model for effective implementation and supported each school to fine tune their logic model, ensuring a clear focus on outcomes and active ingredients. LT’s also looked at a range of other research e.g. ​‘The Pleasures of Reading non-fiction’ by Joy Alexander and Ruth Jarman from Literacy May 2018, Cremin et al. (2014) Reading Teachers: Chapter 6 in Building communities of engaged readers: London: Routledge and Moses and Kelly (2018) We’re a little loud That’s because we like to read: Developing positive views of reading in a diverse urban first grade, from Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 18.3307 – 337

The LT’s are now fully immersed in developing RfP in their individual contexts. Regular follow on support and coaching from myself will help to drive this forward and overcome the different challenges faced by each school. However, the early impact on children and teachers is already evident. I look forward to seeing how RfP continues to develop within these five schools and across the Aspire Educational Trust.

Lisa Hesmondhalgh, Evidence Lead in Education, Aspirer Research School, January 2019