I was recently asked to write an article for Carousel magazine, this has now been published and I thought I would share it with you.
Research is accumulating, which suggests that a growing number of children do not read for pleasure (Clark and Rumbold, 2006). Between 2000 and 2009, on average across OECD countries the percentage of children who report reading for enjoyment daily dropped by five percentage points (OECD, 2010)
Worrying trends when we know:
- there is a positive relationship between reading frequency, reading enjoyment and attainment (Clark 2011; Clark and Douglas 2011)
- reading for pleasure is an activity that has emotional and social consequences and other benefits include text comprehension and grammar, positive reading attitudes, pleasure in reading in later life, and increased general knowledge (Clark and Rumbold, 2006).
With this in mind I asked my own children, ‘What is reading for pleasure?’ My 10 year old answered, “It’s reading stuff that you want to read, that’s fun and not something you’re going to be asked loads of questions about afterwards”. My 12 year old was similar, “It’s when I read something that I really want to read, not something that someone says I have to read.” So, it would appear to me that the key to reading for pleasure is ‘Choice’; being able to choose when, what and how to read, with no added pressure and expectations.
Despite the best intentions of parents, carers and teachers, there are still young people in all schools who find no pleasure in reading at all. Inevitably this leads to stunted reading development. Everyone knows what a vital life skill reading is. The ability to effectively read all kinds of printed material is crucial to success in education and in life. Unless children and young people can find pleasure in reading, they are unlikely to develop their reading ability to the full. At Reading Matters we are dedicated to switching children back on to reading by making reading fun. As a charity and social enterprise, our mission is to support children and young people to reach their potential by becoming confident and enthusiastic readers. In short, we improve reading skills and along the way build confidence and self-esteem, and improve educational outcomes and life chances.
Our recent ‘Reading for Pleasure, Boosting Attainment’ conference brought 150 delegates together to discuss ways of encouraging reading for pleasure, personalising reading support, develop strategies for whole school reading for pleasure, examine and consider ways of engaging those students who find reading really hard, and moving those students who fall into the ‘can read’ camp into the ‘want to read’ group.
How do Reading Matters encourage children and young people to read for pleasure? We respect the fact that all children and young people are different. What works for one will not necessarily work for another. At Reading Matters, we treat young people as individuals, recognising and acknowledging their individual interests, feelings, experiences and so on. We are able to do this through our one-to-one support sessions with young people, usually carried out in schools, by our trained volunteer Reading Mentors, Reading Matters’ trained and accredited Reading Leaders – older students within the same or partner school – and other Reading Matters trained staff. Reluctant and struggling readers may already have had extra help from teachers and SEN support staff, but in spite of this (or in some cases because of this) they see themselves as unable to read or as poor readers. They would rather not read than be reminded of this. Reading Matters support sessions last 30 minutes and ideally take place twice a week for one school term. Long enough to focus on specific difficulties and learning new strategies and short enough not to feel like the intervention will never end.
So how do our Reading Mentors overcome this? How do they break the self-perpetuating cycle? Primarily, they are able to spend more time with individuals than school staff are able to do, getting to know him or her, finding out what they enjoy. The pupils know that the Reading Mentors are volunteers and that they are there, not because it is their job, but because they want to help. Reading Mentors come from all walks of life, all with different life experiences, and their enjoyment in working with their pupil partners shines through. And this is where ‘choice’ comes in, our mentors do not listen to children reading their reading scheme books, they do not sit back whilst children take it in turns to read one page each, with each student worrying and trying to work out in advance what they will have to read. Our approach is simple, Reading Mentors find out what is of interest to their younger partners and find appropriate resources. Reading Matters sessions are fast paced, interesting, interactive and include many different types of reading, functional literacy and activities; games, fun sheets, poetry, plays, maps, leaflets, newspapers, comics, even the back of a cereal packet! They are on an equal partnership footing with both mentor and young person contributing, and they include choice. Reading Mentors do not say, ‘Here’s the library, choose a book’, but offer a limited choice of what they believe will be of interest to their partner, and not necessarily to themselves! They are able to match up individuals with the kind of age and ability appropriate reading material which is most likely to switch them back on to reading, which is fun, and with which the young person can experience early success. Early success in the support programme is essential if reluctant readers are not to view this as just another embarrassing situation, and this is then built upon.
Reading Matters’ intervention work has been shown to be effective and as I write this I have just completed our Impact Report for the academic year 2013/14. I have been really pleased with the findings; following Reading Matters intervention of 30 minutes once or twice a week for one school term, reading ages have improved on average by 13 months, in some cases by considerably more. Performance in reading has improved in over 95% of cases, attitude to reading improved for 90%, and confidence and self-esteem improvements were seen in over 85% of young people. I sincerely hope that these results also mean these young people have been switched back onto reading; like one Year 7 student who told me after her sessions with her Reading Leader, she now regularly visits the school library and is reading to her younger brother at home, and another pupil who was new to English in Year 8, spent time with one of our Reading Mentors and enjoyed it so much that in Year 10 trained as a Reading Leader himself. These young people are now making their own choices about when, what and how to read, and seeing reading as a pleasure, rather than a chore.
To find out more about Reading Matters, please visit readingmatters.org.uk
Rachel Kelly, Chief Executive of Reading Matters
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