Enjoyment is the greatest motivation for reading. As teachers, we are an important influence – it's our job to promote reading for pleasure. Here, experienced teacher Sue Drury offers ideas to get children reading – and they’re only a little bit sneaky...
Why is reading important for children?
No doubt, you can think of dozens of reasons why it is such an important life skill, from texting to job prospecting (and if you think it isn’t, you might want to reconsider your choice of career!).
Even in this internet age, you need reading skills to be able to access and enjoy the vast majority of online content.
Like learning any new skill, it’s those first steps in early childhood that are so crucial – those moments when you’re finding it hard and are tempted to give up.
It is our responsibility as educators to help younger children get over those early hurdles and build up the literacy skills and the momentum that will self-propel their life-long reading development – because we never stop expanding our reading skills.
Share that you are a reader as often as you can. Explain that you indulge in reading for pleasure regularly, out of choice. Always try to exude excitement when talking about books.
In the video above, part of our Teaching High-Quality Texts CPD series, education adviser James Clements talks about how a text-based curriculum built around rich, engaging books can foster genuine reading for pleasure across a school.
He goes on to talk about how shared reading, daily read-alouds and meaningful book talk can help children develop a lasting love of reading, alongside stronger vocabulary, knowledge and learning outcomes.
Ways to encourage reading for pleasure
Peer reviews
Don’t be offended, but if anyone has a greater influence over pupils than their teacher, it’s their classmates. If one of their friends thinks a story book or graphic novel is great, you can bet that others will agree.
You could hope for enthusiasm to spread by word of mouth. However, it might be more reliable to use book reviews.
If you get your pupils to write book reviews and display them, they will soon be finding out what another child has to say about their reading experience.
If they can see that their friends are rating books highly, there is a good chance that they will want to read them too, for pleasure. Even a reluctant reader might be tempted.
Of course, you want the reviews themselves to look exciting, which is why we have created some attractive book review templates for you to use for KS1, LKS2 and UKS2.
As an added bonus, the same resource pack includes “Fantastic Reads!” bookmarks on which pupils can write mini recommendations. These can then be slipped into the book before returning them to the class collection or school library as a very visible attention grabber.
Book-based activities for home
Another great way to encourage reading for pleasure is to task children with activities to do at home that let them explore stories, authors and characters in their own time.
This KS2 home learning pack encourages children to explore books in a fun, creative way. Through activities like designing book covers, writing blurbs and reflecting on favourite characters, it fosters a love of reading that can last well beyond the school week. There's also a version for Y1 and Y2.
Vary the reading material
Make sure your school provides a good range of books for children to read for pleasure – fiction and non-fiction, and not just whatever is available through your reading scheme.
Sadly, fewer and fewer families have easy access to good public libraries and many parents view children’s books as an investment they are unable or unwilling to make. Like it or not, it seems that it is now up to schools to plug that gap.
Even so, it is important to remember that choice is a gateway to engagement – their choice, not yours! You might feel you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of quality children’s literature, but your biases might be more of an influence than you think, so try to let the pupils have some input into the selection.
What’s more, if you are trying to make reading for pleasure a self-driven activity, you might have to view some genres from a different perspective.
After all, grown-ups are allowed to choose whether they read Pride and Prejudice or Bravo Two Zero. Why can’t children make a comparable choice?
Anyway, most books have been through a fairly rigorous quality control process before being published, so you don’t have to worry too much if they’re not quite your thing.
Go deep on comprehension
As Helen Mulley, the co-creator of Plazoom's reading comprehension programme Real Comprehension, explains, "getting something" from reading "is really what we are talking about when we discuss the importance of promoting ‘reading for pleasure’. That "something" could be an emotion, a reaction or a real human connection.
Just because the teaching of reading focuses on a number of official assessment criteria, that doesn’t mean that you can’t use reading comprehension exercises to stimulate enjoyment in reading.
Find texts that you can really delve into and discuss with genuine enthusiasm. As well as talking about things like inference, vocabulary in context and language choices, make time to explore what children enjoyed about the extract and recommend texts with a similar theme.
Our aforementioned Real Comprehension series features 54 original texts by published children's authors and focuses on deep understanding and personal connection with engaging, age-appropriate whole texts.
Children aren't just decoding words – they're “getting something” from reading, which makes them more likely to want to read for enjoyment outside class.
For example, Better Than a Box of Gold from our Y6 collection combines a gripping historical story with themes of kindness, forgiveness and personal growth, drawing pupils into the narrative in a way that makes reading enjoyable and meaningful.
Explore classic children’s literacy
If you want to broaden your pupils’ reading horizons, try introducing them to carefully selected extracts from classic children’s literature.
After all, there’s a reason why these stories are so enduring. What’s more, pupils usually already have some familiarity with the plot or characters because they pop up so frequently in modern culture.
Is there anyone who does not have some frame of reference for pirates as originally portrayed in Treasure Island, for example?
For a ready-made introduction to tales that have stood the test of time, try our classic literature reading resource pack. This exercises key reading skills through extracts from The Wizard of Oz, Five Children and It and The Wind in the Willows.
Switch off devices
If you’re feeling bold, try enlisting the help of parents. Research has shown the importance of switching off electronic devices at least an hour before we go to sleep.
Why not try to encourage a school-wide culture of improving sleep by filling that last hour with reading for pleasure?
Rely on popular children’s books
If nothing else, point pupils towards titles or authors that have a proven track record of engaging young readers. After all, there’s a reason why the Wimpy Kid books fly off the shelves...
You stand at the doorway to a wonderful world of gripping tales and colourful characters. Open it as wide as you can and another generation of happy readers will walk through. They might even thank you for it, one way or another.
Sue Drury qualified as a primary teacher in 1999. Teaching pupils from Year 1 to Year 8, she has held a variety of positions including maths and English subject leader, year leader, and assistant headteacher. Sue has mentored students and NQTs, offering guidance and advice using her years of experience. She created many of Plazoom's literacy resources.