2021 – 2023

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.

The Nuffield Love to Read project aims 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 is funded by the Nuffield Foundation.  To learn more, you can visit the project website: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/lovetoread/ or contact Principal Investigator Sarah McGeown: s.mcgeown@ed.ac.uk

To learn more about children’s perspectives and experiences of current reading for pleasure practices, visit our BERA Special Issue blog, published May 2023: https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/childrens-perspectives-and-experiences-of-reading-for-pleasure-practices-in-the-uk

Project Researchers:

Principal Investigator: Dr Sarah McGeown, University of Edinburgh
Postdoctoral researcher: Dr Emily Oxley, University of Edinburgh

Co-Investigator: Professor Jessie Ricketts, Royal Holloway
Co-Investigator: 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

Expert Advisory Group:

Includes Professor Teresa Cremin (Open University), James Clements, and Dr Melanie Ramdarshan Bold (University of Glasgow).

This project was preregistered – information can be found here:

Love to read: A co-designed programme to motivate and engage child readers

This project has three phases, details provided below:

Phase 1: Qualitative study: https://osf.io/5ztjk

Aims:

1) To understand and describe the breadth and diversity of children’s book reading experiences.

2) To understand and describe school-based practices which children feel would encourage them, and their peers, to enjoy and read more books.

Phase 2:  Qualitative study: https://osf.io/xsjhc

Aims:

1) To co-design (researcher-teacher collaboration) an intervention which is underpinned by relevant theory, research, and children’s insights.

2) To evaluate the co-design process, from participating teachers’ and researchers’ perspectives.

Phase 3: Acceptability and feasibility study: https://osf.io/qvuka

Aim:

To evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of the Love to Read programme in primary school classrooms, as measured by quantity and duration of implementation.

Additional aims:

• To evaluate changes in children’s reading motivation, engagement, and knowledge, skills and behaviors associated with the six principles from pre to post-test.
• To understand teachers’ perspectives of acceptability, feasibility and contribution to children’s outcomes and their own professional development.
• To understand children’s perspectives and experiences of the Love to Read programme.