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Research into how and why children read for pleasure and evidence for how to promote it.

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The first section of the document highlights research evidence on reading for pleasure from domestic and international literature; exploring evidence on the trends and benefits of independent reading amongst both primary and secondary- aged children, as well as why children read.

The second section covers the evidence on what works in promoting reading for pleasure.

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Research evidence on reading for pleasure

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Research into how and why children read for pleasure and evidence for how to promote it.

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The evidence suggests that children benefit from a balanced approach to literacy that includes a range of approaches. The emphasis of the different approaches will shift as children progress; effective diagnosis can help to identify priorities and focus teaching to ensure that it is efficient. Some of the most promising approaches that emerge from the evidence so far include:

Oral language interventions which focus on spoken language and verbal interaction in the classroom appear to benefit all pupils. Some studies show slightly larger effects for younger children and pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. A focus on oral language skills will have benefits for both reading and writing.
Phonics approaches - as part of a balanced approached - have been found to be effective in supporting younger pupils (4−7 year olds) to learn to read.
Reading comprehension strategies focus on learners' understanding of the text. They teach a range of techniques that enable pupils to comprehend the meaning of what is written, such as inferring the meaning from context, summarising or identifying key points, using graphic or semantic organisers, developing questioning strategies, and monitoring their own comprehension and identifying difficulties themselves.
Schools should focus first on developing core classroom teaching strategies that improve the literacy capabilities of the whole class. With this in place, the need for additional support should decrease. Nevertheless, it is likely that a small number of pupils will require additional support - in the form of high-quality, structured, targeted interventions - to make progress. A number of evaluations of such programmes, funded by the EEF, have found promising results. A description of the common features of these programmes is provided in the EEF's literacy guidance reports.

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Evidence on literacy from the Teaching and Learning Toolkit alongside the findings from recent EEF projects

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The Confident Teacher is a blog by teacher and author, Alex Quigley (@HuntingEnglish), that shares ideas and evidence about education, teaching and learning. Alex Quigley