Research School Network: UKLA/BERA/OU Research Symposium March 22nd 2018:

Reading for Pleasure: What next?

I attended the Research Symposium with Emily Crumbleholme, the Reading Champion and Research Lead for Peover Superior Primary School to open up a dialogue in school around the how we continue to develop and sustain our thinking around RfP in our school and others in the Aspire Educational Trust.

Dr Rachel Levy, University of Sheffield, shared her research around Understanding the barriers and motivation to shared reading in families. This particularly resonated with us, as like many schools, there is a specific proportion of children and families do not read at home at all or regularly. How do we encourage this? Dr Levy’s research started with the family – What do they do already? What happens to encourage reading and sharing books together? This is the opposite of the traditional type of ​‘Intervention’ where specific activities are ​‘done’ to a family.

Her findings indicate that parents who may not be readers themselves or who didn’t like reading at school do still go onto to read with their own children. They value this special time with their children and it has an important place in the day, similar to the ​‘Bath, Book, Bed’, routine promoted by the Book Trust. This often comes in the form of special bonding time where a parent spends quality time discussing the day, sharing funny stories as well as looking at books, reading aloud, imitating funny voices etc…

Our thinking is beginning to shift from ​‘What can we do to support parents with sharing reading at home?’ e.g. Leading a workshop/​Intervention to starting the question ​‘How can we continue to promote this enjoyment through valuing special family time, perhaps by recreating it in school. Morning sessions with ​‘Toast and a tale’, afternoon biscuits and tea with cosy cushions and blankets; recreating that special bonding time between families, which Dr Levy refers to in her research.

We also enjoyed listening to the short fuse presentations from The Book Trust, around family engagement and The Open University’s research on Boys disengagement with RfP. Does ​‘unconscious bias’ play a part in creating a deficit perception of boys reading in the classroom? We will also be looking into more detail at the Action Research from the National Literacy Trust around boys reading. Their annual survey of reading behaviours and attitudes helps support and inform large scale national research as well as getting an individual data set for our own school.

Professor Gemma Moss from the IOE, also shared her extremely interesting research around the relationships between reading and performance in reading. Her research busted the common myth heard in schools that boys enjoy non-fiction more than fiction. Research from OECD (2011) suggests otherwise. It also supports the argument that attainment of children is improved more from reading fiction rather than non-fiction. Definitely more food for thought here and further delving into the research as a school and Trust is needed!

Emily Crumbleholme, Reading Champion and Research Lead for Peover Superior Primary School