How I get pupils reading

Richard Riggs is Head of English in a London boys’ school and has been teaching for 15 years. We asked him for his thoughts on how to get pupils reading for pleasure.

How to get pupils reading

I have lost count of the times that I have been told at parents’ evening that someone’s teenage son or daughter has stopped reading. If you look at the research on this topic you generally find two things: firstly, that children should not be forced to read – they should engage with it autonomously; secondly, that in most cases when children are given the choice to read they choose not to. Even enthusiastic younger readers tend to read substantially less by the time they reach their teenage years.

Reading is important for so many aspects of children’s development, not least empathy. In fact, this is my favourite quotation on the importance of reading:

‘I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction’s job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves. Since an ineluctable part of being a human self is suffering, part of what we humans come to art for is an experience of suffering, necessarily a vicarious experience, more like a sort of “generalization” of suffering. Does this make sense? We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple.’

David Foster Wallace, when asked in an interview

I often use this in my first lesson with a sixth form group, to try to get them to think about what reading might be for beyond ideas about exams or the literary canon. 

At my school we have tried to engage with the dip in reading amongst teenagers by bringing in a certain amount of enforced reading. This is not necessarily in line with the research on the topic but if I, as Head of English, have to make a choice between teenagers reading or not reading then I feel it is my duty to push for the former to happen.

As such, we ask children to read at least one book every half term and in the holidays, including four novels over the summer; all of this is on top of the normal school work and whatever novel or play they might be studying in English. These books are class readers chosen by the teacher during term time; in the summer holidays the boys are allowed to choose four from a list of ten – one of which should be a classic like Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone or Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret.

What motivates teenagers to read?

We are fortunate to have the money to buy books (tragically, many schools do not, of course) and we have put a lot of effort into finding novels which we think will appeal to teenage boys. Whilst there are some modern novels which they enjoy (Jonathan Coe’s The Rotters’ Club, for example, or Andrea Levy’s Small Island) it’s interesting that some older writers still have a strong appeal, from Agatha Christie to John Le Carré. In fact, the mystery/detective genre and books in a series (such as Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy) are the things most likely to motivate teenagers to read. 

You will find that some schools have a rather canonical approach to reading but my general belief is that if teenagers are reading at all you are winning the battle – regardless of what they are reading. Although I would love a class of 14-year-old boys to read Jane Eyre or Great Expectations (and sometimes they might), I’m very happy if they are enjoying Skippy Dies by Paul Murray or Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet.

If they take pleasure in those novels now, then there is a very good chance that they will go on to become adult readers, with books embedded in their lives.

Written by: Richard Riggs

Are you a primary or secondary school in England? 97% of schools would recommend Action Tutoring to another school. You can partner with us and our motivated tutors will help the disadvantaged pupils of your school by providing personalised and sustainable academic support. This way, pupils can learn to enjoy the process of learning and reading.

Do you have a passion for English and would like to help children from low-income households to improve their writing skills, read more and have better grades? Get involved today and make a difference.

Reading for Pleasure

We wanted to share this interesting blog from one of our team on ‘Reading for Pleasure’ which was drafted before the crisis. Reading is not only important for your own well being, but it can also help with a child’s academic attainment. During this time when schools are closed, we encourage all pupils to read as much as possible. 

The importance of reading for pleasure

According to an OECD report in 2002, a child’s educational attainment can be more clearly predicted by whether they read for enjoyment than it can be by looking at their socio-economic background. This startling fact partly reflects that those from disadvantaged backgrounds will have more limited access to books, for many reasons including local library closures and lack of school funding. However, it also shows that a targeted intervention in this area can have a wide-reaching positive impact on a child’s future.

Reading ability doesn’t just impact attainment in English. A recent article in Tes referred to literacy as a “magic bullet” in education, pointing out that reading is essential for pupils to be able to understand the wider curriculum. The benefits of reading for pleasure go far beyond academic attainment. Research by The Reading Agency found that reading for enjoyment is linked to increased empathy, improved relationships with others, reductions in the symptoms of depression and dementia, and overall improved wellbeing.

So how can we encourage pupils to read for pleasure, rather than regarding it as extra homework? 

One simple answer is to let them see you reading for fun. Children are easily influenced by what they see the adults in their lives doing, for better or for worse. Modelling reading for pleasure helps to create a positive mindset in which reading is seen as a leisure activity like watching TV or playing a video game, rather than as a chore.

Allowing children to freely choose their own reading material is also crucial. While pupils in a class will all be expected to read the same texts, they should be encouraged to pursue their own tastes and interests in their wider reading. This might include blog posts or articles about a topic that interests them, or less traditional formats like graphic novels. Anything that gets them reading should be encouraged, even if it’s not something you would choose to read yourself. 

Action Tutoring recognises the huge importance of reading for pleasure, so ‘free reading’ activities are built into our primary English workbooks. Tutors are encouraged to spend ten minutes at the start of each session reading with their pupils in a relaxed way, without testing their comprehension of the text.

The benefits of reading for pleasure aren’t limited to children. Not only does taking time for reading set a great example for pupils, it can also boost your own wellbeing. As concerns about coronavirus spread and many of us are starting to feel cooped up at home, there is no better time to lose yourself in a good book.

If you would like to encourage disadvantaged pupils to read more, you can join our community of inspiring volunteers. Your contribution is incredibly important in lowering the attainment gap and making sure all children are given the academic support they need to succeed in school.

COVID-19 set to further widen attainment gap between the UK’s 28% of disadvantaged children and their more affluent counterparts in state education warns charity CEO

Susannah Hardyman, CEO of education charity Action Tutoring discusses COVID-19 and the impact of school closures on children from less well-off backgrounds. 

March 2020 marked a seismic shift in education, with schools nationwide closing their doors to all but the children of key workers and the most vulnerable, whilst grappling to implement online solutions in a bid to provide effective teaching and learning to pupils. The shift also prompted unprecedented demand from affluent parents for private tutoring – an industry with an annual income of over £2bn – keen to shield with online support their children from spring/summer learning loss.

But what about the 28% of pupils in state education deemed as disadvantaged – pupils who may not have access to high bandwidth broadband to facilitate remote learning and likely won’t have space to work in which to work easily in cramped accommodation.  Currently every year 75,000 disadvantaged children leave school without basic qualifications in English and maths. Pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are not less academically able, but lack of access to tools and resources means currently only 41% of this group pass English and maths GCSEs, compared to 69% of all other pupils.

Motivation is also set to prove a challenge. We all know that it is far easier to engage with a pupil in person than it is to motivate them to work online, especially if their parents are not available to support and encourage them or that child is struggling academically. Forcing attendance of online sessions will, I believe, be highly difficult to enforce or even encourage. 

Sadly, it seems inevitable that the current national crisis will further widen the attainment gap. While many schools are doing all they can now to mitigate this, and are proving themselves in so many ways as the fourth emergency service, disadvantaged children are going to need more support than ever before to catch up in the months to come. That support will no doubt need to take many forms, but tutoring is a well known, effective intervention that can play a big role in raising attainment.  

As a key provider of school-based intervention programmes incorporating tutoring solutions provided free to disadvantaged pupils, Action Tutoring is calling on the government to provide catch up funding for disadvantaged pupils once schools are back to normal business in addition to the Pupil Premium funding. This could enable schools to provide extra support such as additional tuition for disadvantaged pupils – who are already 18 months behind their more affluent counterparts by the end of secondary schools – to help prevent them from falling even further behind. In the short term, Action Tutoring, along with other organisations, are lobbying the Department for Education to provide laptops and broadband access to those that need it to facilitate home learning more easily.

Whilst exams may have been scrapped for this year, learning is for life and not just for exams. Good standards in English and maths in particular are crucial to progressing well in further education, employment or training. Schools will be and are doing all they can safely to alleviate the immediate impact of the current crisis on their pupils. This crisis has seen an incredible outpouring of community spirit, whether through food banks or local groups setting up to look out for their neighbours. But COVID-19 is going to have a long lasting impact on society. 

Volunteers and charities will be needed more than ever before, backed by the government, to help schools pick up the pieces and enable their pupils, whatever their background, to flourish in every way. The immediate volunteer and charity efforts are hugely encouraging but as many are saying, this is going to be a marathon not a sprint. Those efforts are surely going to be needed for a long time to come.

Over the last few years Action Tutoring has built up healthy reserves, which we are very thankful for at the moment. We are also grateful to our many funders who are standing with us through this period. However, we are facing a loss of income due to not being able to deliver in schools. Therefore, any donation would be very gratefully received to help us compensate for this and ensure we can be in a strong place to be ready to support our pupils as soon as we can safely do so. 

We also hope to engage many more volunteers to ensure we can help these pupils get back to where they should be.  

Apply here to volunteer or visit our fundraising page to donate – thank you for making a difference in a very challenging time.

We are also working hard to prepare an online offering of our tutoring model.  It’s still early days, but please do register your interest here if you would like to hear more about these developments.