Revisiting reading for pleasure: Delight, desire and diversity

To what extent do children in the early 21st century choose to read for pleasure, for leisure and for enjoyment? Are they reading for themselves, or for their teachers and the assessment system? Does the desire to read independently, to engage with others’ worlds, to wonder and ponder and find out more about issues of interest run deep enough to sustain the young as readers of today and tomorrow

Report to Carnegie UK Trust and CILIP on a two-stage study of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Shadowing Scheme

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) organises the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway (CKG) Children’s Book Awards. CILIP also manages the accompanying CKG Shadowing Scheme and its associated website, which librarians and other group leaders and group members can use to support reading and foster young people’s enjoyment of reading. In order to explore the potential of this scheme, build on previous evaluations and make recommendations regarding development, two studies were commissioned in 2011 and 2012, funded by Carnegie UK Trust. The 2012 study built substantially on the research carried out in 2011 and is therefore better regarded as the second phase of a continuing project. The combined results of both phases are presented in this report

Exploring teacher-writer identities in the classroom: Conceptualising the struggle

Given the narrow scope of primary teachers' knowledge and use of children's literature identified in Phase I of Teachers as Readers (2006-7), the core goal of the Phase II project, was to improve teachers' knowledge and experience of such literature in order to help them increase children's motivation and enthusiasm for reading, especially those less successful in literacy. The year long project, Teachers as Readers: Building Communities of Readers, which was undertaken in five Local Authorities in England, also sought to build new relationships with parents and families and to explore the concept of a Reading Teacher: a teacher who reads and a reader who teaches (Commeyras et al., 2004). The research design was multi-layered; involving data collection at individual, school and LA levels, and employing a range of quantitative and qualitative data research methods and tools. This paper provides an overview of the research and highlights the challenges encountered and the insights garnered. It argues that teachers need support in order to develop children's reading for pleasure, which can influence both attainment and achievement and increase young learners' engagement as self- motivated and socially engaged readers

Reading communities: why, what and how?

Are you seeking to build a vibrant community of readers in your classroom and/or school? If so, how will you know when you’ve achieved your goal? What are the key characteristics of such communities? Can these be seen, heard, felt, experienced? What strategies and practices will help you succeed? Is there a fail-safe route? A motorway between research and practice? Whilst this article responds to these questions, first we surely need to consider our long terms aims. Do we want to develop readers for life (the maximum entitlement), or will the ‘expected standard’ (the minimum) or greater depth (a halfway house?) suffice? After all it’s only five years since reading for pleasure became a statutory requirement in England, it had never before been mandated and as Philip Pullman observed about the 1998 National Literacy Strategy, whilst there were more than 55 verbs to describe reading: ‘enjoy’ was not one of them! Yet now developing a love of reading is recognised officially as essential and building communities of engaged readers expected of us all

Creative Teaching for Tomorrow: Fostering a Creative State of Mind Deal

`Creative Teaching for Tomorrow: Fostering a Creative State of Mind' is a study by distinguished authors Teresa Cremin, Jonathan Barnes and Stephen Scoffham. Based on a research project undertaken during 2004-2005 by Canterbury Christ Church University and Future Creative, the book explores the characteristics of creative teachers, identifying the behaviours and environments that support the development of these attributes. `Creative Teaching for Tomorrow' involves a survey of 20 schools, revealing evidence that creative thinking benefits students economically, socially and academically. Real-life interviews with teachers and students, complete with questions and answers, attest that creative approaches do help to increase learners' personal curiosity and desire to learn, to realise the importance of risk-taking and to become more engaged with the learning experience as well as the world around them

How to become a reading role model

• Are you a reading role model for younger learners? • Do the children see you as a reader or only as a teacher or both? • Do they know anything about your habits, interests, likes and dislikes as a reader? • Do they know where, when and what you like to read for leisure and pleasure? • Do you ever stop to reflect on your literacy life, within and beyond school

Poetry, Pleasure and Play

As the sun comes out and the pressure in school lessens, let’s take the time to play with words and develop approaches that connect to children’s early oral experiences of poetry when they engaged physically, socially and emotionally with language. If we build on the sounds and savours found in nursery rhythms and playground rhymes and popular songs, it is affectively engaging – a place to play. Why not invite young people to brainstorm such rhymes and then take skipping ropes, hoops and balls onto the playground or to the park? As the ropes hit the tarmac and two balls bounce against the wall, their bodily memories of poems, songs, chants and dance routines will return

Our foot's in the door: Editorial to Special Issue on Creativity, Arts and Cultural Education

Some years ago now, my primary school dance club chose Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Mushrooms’ (1962) to perform in a Medway town arts festival at Chatham dockyard. We read and discussed the text, improvised our interpretation of mushrooms ‘overnight, very whitely, discreetly’ and of girls (and boys) taking ‘hold on the loam’ to ‘acquire the air’. We also listened to music that might suit, engaged a group to offer an accompanying reading and added a repeating ostinato during the second half – ‘our foot’s in the door’… ‘our foot’s in the door’. Those were the days. Long days of creativity, expressive freedom, professional artistry and agency, and time and space to explore possibilities within and beyond the curriculum. Or were they

Evaluation Report of Prospero’s Island: an Immersive Approach to Literacy at Key Stage 3.

Prospero's Island is an immersive theatre project created by Punchdrunk Enrichment and sponsored by Learning Partner, London Borough of Hackney (Hackney Learning Trust). The project sought to inspire and motivate students’ engagement with the English curriculum, and to develop an immersive approach to teaching literacy that would improve students’ learning. Prospero’s Island took place in a secondary academy in Hackney, London over two school terms (autumn 2014-spring 2015). The project was embedded in existing schemes of work, and included the following elements: • An immersive theatre installation for Year 7-8 students (aged 11-13 years); this took the form of an interactive game based on The Tempest; over a two-week period groups of students participated in this experience for a morning or afternoon (autumn term); • A Teaching and Learning Day (TALD) and eight twilight CPD sessions on immersive learning techniques for school staff and teachers across London (autumn term); • A return to the installation for one lesson, led by English teachers (autumn term); • Follow-on work by teachers to develop immersive learning in English lessons (spring term); • An independent evaluation of the project (autumn and spring terms)

Less is More – focusing on feedback

Teachers, Arvon tutors and the Craft of Writing research team all enjoyed a return to Lumb Bank for the second set of Craft of Writing residentials in January – and across the three groups fought off the challenges of snow and a broken boiler, making the weekends quite different to June memories of sunshine and the World Cup! During this time the teachers continued their journeys as writers and wrote in workshops and their own free time, refining and revising their writing. They also shared their experiences, challenges and successes of putting the Craft of Writing Framework into practice, and discussed ways of circumnavigating difficulties when seeking to develop children’s creative writing in school. The Framework, as noted in earlier blogs, was derived from an analysis of the craft knowledge deployed by professional writers. The data had been collected in the previous Teachers as Writers project. The focus of this second weekend was on critical feedback in order to generate a shared vocabulary and language to talk about writing and help revision skills. The tutors Steve Voake and Alicia Stubbersfield prompted the teachers to write and then, working in small groups, to read their work to one another, explore authorial intentions and offer focussed feedback. The teachers also attended one to one tutorials and received yet more critical feedback to support them as writers. As a community we reflected on the stubborn resilience in all our writing, of a tendency to tell rather than show – something we acknowledged we all need to work on, and the value of modelling ways to do this in the classroom