Our free Badged Online Course Developing Reading for Pleasure: Engaging Young Readers is now live! It’s designed to support all those with a focus on nurturing children’s enjoyment in reading. It explores theory and research as well as practical guidance, all with the aim of improving children’s reading lives.

Are you ready to take the next steps on your Reading for Pleasure journey with the Open University’s Reading Schools Programme: Building a Culture of Reading 2022-23? Join us for a briefing meeting on Thursday 24^th February 4pm - 5.15pm and find out more about our research-informed whole school development programme. 

Informal book talk supports young readers by enabling ​all readers (children and adults) ​to connect to each other around books in common and make book recommendations. This poster explains what informal book talk really is, what you need to do and why it’s so important. Feel free to print off and put up in staffrooms!

These awards, now in their 5^th year, celebrate teachers, reading champions and schools whose practices make a real difference to children’s reading lives. Winners receive Farshore books (£250) for their school, copies of Help Your Child Love Reading by Alison David and a year’s subscription to the Beano magazine. The deadline for entries is midnight on Monday 28th March 2022. Click here for more information.

Check out these 25 ways to celebrate World Book Day! This is a richly compiled range of ideas, that we were delighted to contribute to. We’ve been working with the team at WBD for some time now, alongside CLPE and NLT, helping underpin their new approach with research evidence.

Are you a Year 1 teacher, English/Literacy lead, school librarian or member of staff with knowledge of your school’s Year 1 English curriculum? If so, please fill in this short survey as part of a project exploring representations of ethnic minority groups, LGBTQ+ identities and characters with disabilities in the books used in Year 1 classes. The deadline is 28^th February.

Larraine Harrison writes books for both teachers and children. Larraine is keen to develop links between schools and authors and has published an article in the TES about the correlation between children’s reading and writing engagement, and regular contact with authors. Find out more about Larraine and her favourite books in this month’s spotlight.

Miranda McKearney OBE is the founder of EmpathyLab, which aims to raise an empathy-educated generation, using the power of stories to build young people’s empathy skills. This month, Miranda has chosen for us some powerful texts for early and secondary years as her top texts.

The 72 schools we're working with this year have been actively developing the role of Reading Headteachers. Headteachers who keep up to date reading children's texts and take time to chat informally with children, exchanging ideas and sharing book recommendations, make a huge impact on staff and children. As Sonia Thompson (long-time Reading Headteacher at St Matthews, Birmingham) puts it, 'No one escapes my book talk!'

Rebecca Kennedy has been working with the OU team as a TRG Leader mentor and on the Reading Schools Programme for several years. She is an independent English adviser based in the West Midlands, an editorial board member of English 4-11 (UKLA/EA) and this year is privileged to be group leader for the UKLA Book Awards 2022. This is allowing her even more of an excuse to read new and exciting children’s literature.

I’m the Hub Lead for Ilsham English Hub and this is my second year running an online TRG. I am passionate about inspiring and supporting people on their RfP journey. I‘m proud of the fact that no matter what Covid has thrown at us, staff have gone above and beyond to ensure books have remain at the hearts of our children's lives. I really recommend being part of a TRG.

This is my second year running a group.  I am a passionate reader with a strong belief that teaching children to read and more importantly to love reading is essential to their future education - and so good for their mental health.  As a leader I hope to support others to create a love of reading in their own classroom and school.  

This gold winner was a standout entry, thoughtfully connecting research to practice. Caroline from Bishop Grosseteste University implemented an interactive book club, that got the children engaging with books post-lockdown.

The silver winners displayed thoughtful reflection into their own reading lives, habits and roles as teachers. Sarah and Alyssia, from Greenwich University, then identified ways forward to build reading communities in their classrooms.

Shared storybook reading is an important context for language learning and often constitutes young children's first encounter with the printed word. This exploratory study describes the quality of such  reading between mothers and their 3- to 4-year-old children in families at  risk of dyslexia.