We are delighted to be celebrating five years of the Open University (OU) Reading for Pleasure (RfP) coalition!
Since 2017, we have experienced incredible growth and have been part of some brilliantly successful social-justice driven projects and initiatives. In fact, it is estimated that our research has influenced the reading lives of over 180,000 children* thanks to our hugely popular OU/UKLA Teachers’ Reading Groups.
In this short video, Prof Teresa Cremin, Professor of Education at The Open University, recounts some of the highlights from the past five years and extends a huge ‘thank you’ to all those that have supported Reading for Pleasure.
Some of RfP’s achievements include supporting 150 schools to build a culture of reading, The Teachers’ Reading Challenge and The Farshore Reading for Pleasure awards. Click on the image below to see some of our biggest successes to-date!
(Click to read more RfP in numbers)
Community Coalition Growth
In the past five years, our work has involved a vast audience of teachers, student teachers, librarians, teaching assistants and literacy coordinators, through numerous social justice-driven projects and initiatives.
Over 600 teachers have published their research-informed RfP work as Examples of Practice (EoP) on this site. Each EoP showcases their impact on children as readers and allows other practitioners to read about and benefit from their newly informed experience.
Plus, there have been well over 300 OU/UKLA Teacher Reading Groups (year-long CPD sessions informed by the RfP research) which have attracted approximately 7,000 members who have gone on to improve pupils’ reading for pleasure in their schools.* In addition, the team have worked with 34 Higher Education Institutional Partners to support student teachers as readers and future educators.
The OU Reading for Pleasure community has flourished, and currently has an impressive 23,000+ Twitter followers and 44,000+ newsletter subscribers.
(Click to read more RfP in numbers)
Collaborations
In partnership with The Reading Agency, we set up the Teachers’ Reading Challenge, to expand teachers’ repertoires of children’s texts and equip them with knowledge and skill to confidently promote choice-led reading and participate as fellow readers. In just two years, over 5,000 people signed up for the challenge.
We have also successfully collaborated with Farshore and UKLA to co-found the annual Reading for Pleasure Awards. The awards, now in their fifth year, celebrate teachers, reading champions and schools whose practices make a real difference to children’s recreational reading. Each year case studies are submitted to the RfP website and judges, including Professor Teresa Cremin, award prizes for outstanding entries across several categories.
“Finding ways to engage students in reading may be one of the most effective ways to leverage social change. (OECD, 2021)”
Launch of free OU RfP course
In January 2022, the we launched our official OU Reading for Pleasure Badged Online Course and received over 2,000 sign ups in two months! This free CPD course was designed to to widen understanding of how reading for pleasure, changes children’s life chances and enable participants to develop the knowledge and strategies needed to promote reader engagement across schools, homes and communities.
RfP Background
In 2017, The Open University Reading for Pleasure (RfP) website was launched to share the findings of the ground-breaking Teachers as Readers research, led by Professor Teresa Cremin.
The aim was to enable more young people to become childhood readers, thus reaping the associated academic, social and emotional benefits and advancing social justice.
An Advisory Group of teachers and UK Literacy Association (UKLA) consultants helped shape the evidence-informed site, which offers research, pedagogy and resources to enrich the profession’s RfP knowledge, understanding and practice.
