2021 – 2023 (Phase 1) 2026 – 2028 (Phase 2)

For children to reach their full potential as readers, they must be motivated to read and choose to read independently. Book reading provides important opportunities for children to develop their language and literacy skills, and knowledge and understanding of the world. Reading books also allows time for children to relax, laugh, pursue their interests, enter imaginary worlds, develop their empathy skills, and spend time with fictional friends. The experiences children can have when they read books can be rich and diverse, in so many ways, but only if children are choosing to read and engaged with the books they are reading.

Phase 1:

The initial Love to Read project aimed to co-design a programme to motivate and engage child readers, combining relevant theory and research, with children’s input and ideas, and teachers’ professional and pedagogical knowledge, experience and expertise. This project was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and included an acceptability/feasibility evaluation of the co-designed programme.  To learn more and access the programme/resources, please visit the project website: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/lovetoread/.

In addition, academic publications arising from the project can be found here:

McGeown et al. (2026): https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2026.2644962

Oxley & McGeown (2023): https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2023.2236123

McGeown et al. (2023): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2022.102134

McGeown & Conradi-Smith (2023): https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2267

Phase 2:

This second phase involves investigating the effectiveness of the Love to Read programme in increasing reading children’s motivation and engagement in primary schools in England via a randomised controlled trial.  You can learn more here: https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/love-to-read-phase-2-a-large-scale-evaluation

Research team

Phase 1:

Researchers: Principal Investigator: Dr Sarah McGeown, University of Edinburgh, Postdoctoral researcher: Dr Emily Oxley, University of Edinburgh; Co-Investigators: Professor Jessie Ricketts, Royal Holloway and Dr Laura Shapiro, Aston University

Project Partners: Katherine Wilkinson, Head of Research and Evaluation, Scottish Book Trust; Christina Clark, Director of Research, National Literacy Trust; Megan Dixon, Former Head Teacher; Helen Fairlie, Senior Education Officer (Literacy), Education Scotland; Katrina Lucas, Teacher

Teacher Co-design Team: Katie Juckes, Carol Ann Neil, Chereen Rain, Claire Sleath, Emily Weston and Chris Youles

Phase 2:

Researchers: Principal Investigator: Dr Miriam McBreen (IoE, UCL), Co-Investigators: Dr Jamie Lingwood and Professor Sarah McGeown