Report

Published December 2023

Report commissioned by the Mercers' Company (London-based philanthropic company) as part of its Young People & Education programme and developed by the Open University. 3 year study.

Examines the research into children's reading and writing (noting how few studies track children's engagements as readers or writers over time).

Context

According to the latest UK statistics from the National Literacy Trust (NLT), fewer than half (43 per cent) of children and young people aged 8-18 say they enjoy reading in their free time - the lowest figure since the survey began in 2005.

In the last Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) less than half of the ten-year-olds (42%) reported that they like reading (Mullis et al., 2023) and 18% were categorical that they did not. In the UK, just over a third of 8 to 18 years old indicated that they enjoy writing in their free time (Clark et al., 2023). In addition, such large surveys persistently indicate that more girls than boys, and more young people from higher rather than lower socio-economic backgrounds, voice positive attitudes to reading and writing.

According to PiRLS, just 29 per cent of children in England said they enjoyed reading, compared with 46 per cent of children internationally.

Five "Synergies"

IDENTITY - Young People's Literate Identities

The importance of children developing a positive sense of themselves as readers and writers:

Children and young people‘s sense of themselves as readers and writers is constructed and re-constructed by the literacy activities in which they engage, (both voluntarily or in response to request), at home (e.g. writing text messages, homework), at school (e.g. reading at break, written comprehension), and in wider ‘community‘ contexts (e.g. fan fiction writing online, visiting the library). Their literate identities are thus always in flux, influenced by the environment, the text, their past and present experiences of literacy and by the identity positions as readers and writers that are made available to them by parents, peers, teachers and others, and those that they choose to adopt (Collier, 2010; Moje and Luke, 2009; Wagner, 2023).

• readers' identities commonly associated with their perceived and received sense of ‘ability‘ and self-efficacy.
• Young people‘s sense of competence as readers is in part shaped by their understanding of what it means to be a ‘reader‘.
• Teachers‘ conceptions of reading and being a reader impact children's reading identities.
• Influence of gender, social class, ethnicity, social networks also influence reading identities.
• Writing can be seen as a social mechanism for constructing and performing identity.
• School experiences heavily influence writers' identities.
• writing in different social settings can help young people re-position themselves as competent writers.

To summarise, the extant research literature which examines children and young people‘s literate identities indicates that these are shaped by adults and children‘s beliefs about reading and writing which frame what a ‘good‘ reader or writer is deemed to be able to do, and what counts as ‘good‘ reading or writing in the particular context. Readers‘ and writers‘ identities are negotiated and co-constructed in and through interaction with others in different social environments and influences their motivation and desire to read and write in their own time.

MOTIVATION - Intrinsic Motivation, Self-efficacy and competence

Involves enabling young readers and writers to feel a sense of agency, competence and social connection through reading and writing.

• intrinsic motivation is more closely associated with reading frequency and skill
• reading competence and intrinsic motivation are mutually reinforcing
• there are complex nuanced relationships between motivation and positive attitudes towards writing, self-efficacy and writing skills.
• autonomy and agency, self-efficacy, relatedness and sociality are critical to the development of recreational readers.
• finding ways to nurture children‘s agency and autonomy as readers is fundamental to enabling recreational reading.
• Offering adult support and guidance and offering feedback about students' growing competence as readers is important in fostering children‘s sense of success, their competence, self-esteem and self-efficacy as readers.
• Children are more likely to engage as readers if those around them value the activity.
• Writing by choice at home supports independence.
• The more confident and autonomous children feel about writing, the more writing they do, the more competent they become, which feeds back into their confidence.
• real world writing activities and a focus on audience, can provide opportunities for children to engage with and succeed at writing.
• a key motivation for writers is creating connections with others and maintaining these reader-writer relationships.

To summarise, research indicates that to motivate the young as recreational readers and writers, it is vital to offer them agency, enable them to feel competent, and provide opportunities for them to engage socially in a culture which profiles and values reading and writing for pleasure. Additionally, their access to texts, time to read and the nature of the social interactions involved will influence their engagement, as well as the presence of adult role models and the opportunities to participate in and become members of connected communities of readers and writers. Existing research into each of these influential factors is now examined.

Text Access, Space and Time

The importance of offering dedicated time and space to access, choose, read and/or produce a range of personally relevant and affectively engaging texts.

• Research reveals a clear link between text access and reading for pleasure.
• Book distribution programmes are seen to make a valuable contribution.
• The calibre and nature of the available texts impact on the sustained engagement and enjoyment of readers, with edgy, affectively engaging high-interest books being seen to entice many readers.
• positive experiences in reading lead to the desire to replicate such sensations as a writer.
• enabling children to choose what they read is critical in supporting young people‘s engagement in volitional reading.
• positive consequences of adults finding out about young people‘s reading interests, identities and attitudes
• The range needs to include both culturally relevant texts and enticing fiction, since this affectively engaging genre plays a significant role in supporting reading for pleasure.
• Young people enjoy being able to exercise their agency as writers and choose the content and form of their writing.
• When children have little control over the texts they are writing, this can create adverse responses and trigger anxiety.
• If time to read is intentional, well-planned and supported as part of a wider comprehensive approach it can make a contribution to developing volitional reading and positive reader identities.
• The co-creation of an invitational, low stakes and often social reading environment, is seen as supportive, whether in classrooms, libraries or the wider school building and grounds.
• Research indicates that young people appreciate being involved, and value reading spaces and libraries designed to accommodate different uses: as comfortable quiet reading spaces; as forums to meet with peers, to participate in clubs and use technologies; and as contemplative oases.

To summarise, to nurture reading for pleasure young people need access to a wide range of enticing texts that are culturally relevant and diverse. Well informed teachers and other adults, with strong text repertoires can support students, by getting to know them as unique readers, supporting their choices, and mediating any particularly challenging texts. Young writers too, develop an enhanced desire to write when teachers get to know them, offer authorial agency and choice, enable them to write for personal and real-world purposes, and draw on their cultural practices and experiences. Research suggests assigning time and space within the curriculum and creating a supportive environment, both physically and socially, can help to motivate volitional reading and writing.

Social Interaction

The role that sharing and talking about texts plays - predominantly learner-led.

Historically, reading and writing have been characterised as individual activities, often undertaken in privacy or isolation. More recently however, their profoundly social nature has been recognised (Barton and Hamilton, 1998; Brice Heath, 1983). Research examining reading for pleasure highlights the significant social interaction involved in being a reader and in making sense of texts (e.g., Boyask et al., 2022a; Cremin et al., 2014; Ivey and Johnston, 2013; Maybin, 2013; Merga et al., 2018; Neugebauer and Gilmour, 2020; Ng, 2018; Sellers, 2019). In a not dissimilar manner, young people‘s engagement in writing and sense of themselves as writers is, research reveals, influenced by opportunities for interaction (e.g., Dyson, 2003; Fisher et al., 2010; Myhill and Newman, 2019; Myhill, Newman and Watson, 2020). Writing studies though, tend to focus more on talk as a tool for deepening students‘ metacognitive understanding of writing, than on developing their desire to write.

• the literacy environment foregrounded, is frequently a highly social one;
• pleasure are nurtured and enriched by social interaction.
• at home:
  • Research indicates that home reading interactions can become dominated by school-set expectations and routines, with parents concerned to ‘get it right‘ once their child starts school.
  • shared book reading is positively associated with children‘s attitudes and enjoyment of reading.
• at school:
  • positive influence of school-based opportunities to talk about books on motivation, engagement and recreational reading.
  • Reading aloud to children for the purpose of pleasure offers rich opportunities for self- expression, dialogue and social interaction that can create connections between readers, deepen understanding, and fashion a sense of community.
  • Opportunities for informal book talk can support children‘s desire to read and positively shape their attitudes to books and reading.
  • young people value this talk which is triggered by texts and their social relationships.
  • Talk and collaboration during the process of writing can be motivational.
  • talk serves to engage and motivate young people as writers and contributes to self-regulation and enhanced self-efficacy.

To summarise, opportunities to support children as positively engaged readers and writers, benefit from being highly social and interactive. These invite and sanction open-ended discussions about texts, both those being read and composed, and enable learners to position themselves relationally, facilitating interaction and collaboration that motivates and engages them. They support the development of positive attitudes to reading and writing. Sustained opportunities for social interaction around reading and writing, whether at home, school or online, contribute to the formation of networks and connected communities which may, in turn, stimulate and sustain young people‘s engagement as readers and writers.

Role-modelling and Connected Communities

Children sharing their own literate identities and the support they receive from different memberships of shared communities.

In literacy environments, adults can adopt (or be assigned) multiple identity positions, for instance as gatekeepers, curators, mentors, monitors, assessors, fellow readers and/or writers. Research suggests that those adults who are engaged readers and writers themselves can become role models and, in this position, positively influence young people‘s engagement in volitional reading and writing (e.g., Kucirkova and Cremin, 2017; Ng, 2018; Rowe, Shimizu and Davis, 2022; Woodard, 2017; Zumbrunn et al., 2019). By reflecting on their own experience of reading and writing, studies indicate that adults may come to question ‘schooled‘ or received perceptions of reading and writing, re-consider what counts in their context and take a broader view.

• Parents who read or show reading enjoyment at home shape children and young people‘s motivation.
• Teenagers whose parents report enjoying reading the most, (and are thus likely to model their engagement) have a higher index of reading enjoyment than those whose parents report not enjoying reading
• Libraries can also create communities of belonging that enable reading for pleasure to be a shared experience for those students who identify as readers and wish to engage with others around texts in the safe space for reading that the library provides.
• Educators who create connected communities of readers also intentionally offer sustained social and relational opportunities to nurture recreational reading as a collective.
• teachers‘ investment in writing can enhance their students‘ experiences as writers - present themselves as "fellow writers in the classroom."

To summarise, research indicates that adult involvement and authentic demonstrations of the experience, pleasures and challenges of being a reader and/or a writer can positively influence children‘s own literate identities. Through role modelling and the creation and support of various connected communities and kinship groups, adults invest in and involve young people, offering them agency and space to participate on their own terms. This supports the development of positive dispositions and enhances their volitional engagement as readers and writers. Nonetheless, more work is needed to understand the diverse needs and interests of different groups, to consider those members who may only be peripherally engaged, and to explore wider communities of connection that stretch beyond the bounds of school and encompass families and local community members.

Framework

The OU framed Writing for Pleasure as volitional writing: "which, in line with notions of reading for pleasure, is seen to be driven by an individual‘s own goals and interests, which may include social ones, in anticipation of some kind of satisfaction."

• young people's enjoyment of reading and writing in decline
• research reveals that the habit of reading in childhood is associated with academic, social and emotional outcomes and can mitigate educational disadvantages associated with gender and socio-economic status
• "research literature shows that children‘s literate identities play a key role in their wider sense of self, and their motivation and desire to read or write for pleasure"

"expansive understandings of reading and writing"
"the importance of children‘s affective, creative and social engagement as readers and writers"

Individually Oriented Approaches

• adult foregrounding of the voices of children and young people (opportunities for children to share something of themselves);
• nurturing young people‘s agency and autonomy as readers and writers (child-led text choice is vital; writing for personal and real-world purposes);
• fostering young people‘s sense of self-efficacy and assurance as readers and writers (supportive environments, constructive feedback, structures yet informal reading and writing for pleasure activities)

Socially Oriented Approaches

• social interactions around reading and writing (facilitated by conversational exchanges and spontaneous interactions around read and written texts)
• adult role models (adults demonstrating engagement with texts and writing)
• creation of connected communities of readers and writers (online and offline)

Access and Time and Space

Accessing texts and having time and space to engage with them are key to Reading and Writing for Pleasure.

Regular sharing, browsing, recommending, gifting and lending as well as enabling text ownership.

Time Set Aside

Time set aside to "just" read and write (home, school, library, wider community events).

Time set aside "benefits from a carefully curated balance of familiar routine and flexibility, accommodating both extended periods of quiet, immersed engagement in reading and composing texts, and vibrant interactions with others

Relationally Informal Environments

"the value of physically inviting and relationally informal environments which are often learner shaped and owned. Environments that are perceived to be safe, social, and non- judgemental"

TES Interview with Professor Teresa Cremin

TES interview with Professor Teresa Cremin, invloved in the Framework study, in which she presents the reasons why Reading for Pleasure and Writing for Pleasure are vital.

Cremin:

The research tells us that reading for pleasure is associated with lots of benefits: academic, social and emotional - for example, cognitive development, reading comprehension, vocabulary and writing.

wellbeing advantages... the association between being a reader and lower levels of emotional problems and better prosocial behaviour.

The concept of “writing for pleasure” isn’t common; it doesn’t really exist in research or policy.

teachers can have quite narrow conceptions of what counts as “writing”; they presume that being a writer involves creating poetry or a novel. And if we have that narrow view of writing, then people won’t see themselves that way.

Regarding the study & Framework:

We saw that the young people in the programmes were positioned as readers and writers, not children “doing” reading and writing, which is a really different identity position. They were respected and listened to, and their choices were honoured, and, as a result, we saw that they stood up as readers and writers with something to say.

There’s quite a lot of research evidence that shows the significance of self-efficacy predicting attitudes, which, in turn, can also predict the frequency with which we engage as readers and writers recreationally. It’s a case of: “I feel good about myself as a reader or writer, and I like it enough to do more of it.”

Informality is key. It’s about reshaping the interface between teachers and pupils, so the relationship can be non-hierarchical: not pupil to teacher, but reader to reader. You’ve both read the book and both thought it was a bit scary, and you’re chatting about it, with mutual respect and reciprocity and authenticity.

Good practice is about being really personally involved, mediating and motivating pupils’ engagement, but also being highly attuned to them as individuals. There are plenty of research studies that show that such connections make a difference in young people’s engagement as readers or writers.

If you’re working in a school education system, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll have a narrower conception of what reading and writing are and what they’re good for, and what counts as reading and writing because, arguably, it is partly framed for you by the school curriculum.

teachers to engage as genuine readers in the classroom.

Cremlin on the importance of opportunities for relaxed and supportive social interaction:

We found that social approaches made a big difference. You can centre stuff around children’s ideas for writing and reading, and give them choice, while also providing peer support and playful activities and opportunities to interact with one another. That way, reading isn’t a solo activity, nor is writing. It doesn’t mean you have to do shared writing, but you can share the writing you’re doing.

some of the characteristics we want to develop are around interacting with others as readers and writers, sharing with others, listening to others, and adults and peers giving good feedback on others’ writing because they enjoyed listening.

Lots of noise and lots of people talking and sharing and swapping and moving to somebody else. That was motivating.

It’s not a solo experience. That’s really key.