The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research

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This last effect of reading is perhaps one of the most exciting and interesting: It turns out that the health benefits of reading can help us live longer. This is at the heart of our charitable work and you can see what this looks like in any one of our Associate Member Schools. It is truly inspiring.

Another perk of reading is that you'll gain new knowledge of words! You know that quirky friend/coworker you have that's always showing you up with new fancy vocabulary… you can do an uno-reverse on them one day if you read enough! Do they have up-to-date knowledge of the best quality children’s literature and which books to choose or use to promote different reading experiences?

You'll find that sooner or later, your writing works will start to be influenced by the pieces you read (in a good way!) This is when you know that you've really grasped something from your readings and are starting to apply it. Choose books with strong human themes that enable children to inhabit the world of a story and characters with whom they are invested.

Like a well-curated book shop, create an inviting book corner with front-facing books to support browsing; familiar books which invite re-reading and revisiting, favoured by the children or recently read aloud in class; books that invite wider reading across forms, authors, poets and illustrators, topics or themes.One study found that older adults who regularly read or play mentally challenging games like chess are two and a half times less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. For our nursery pupils the focus is predominantly on their communication and language development. They share the same texts as the Reception pupils and as a team we collaborate on our Power of Reading* planning for each week. As EYFS lead I am delighted to observe the nursery children chatting about the text and illustrations, predicting what the story may be about, describing what they see and examining each character in detail. The Power of Reading* has resulted in children using a rich and varied story vocabulary. Further to this, the rich language is transferred into the children’s role-play and into many of their child initiated learning experiences. To get your free example of CLPE’s Power of Reading sequences go to clpe.org.uk/books/power-of-reading/about.

CLPE also offers an annual membership for schools where you can access teaching sequences and examples of classroom practice to help you build an exciting and relevant literacy curriculum.Jerrim, J, and N. Shure (2016) Achievement of 15-Year-Olds in England: PISA 2015 National Report DfE p. 105] ↩ Research has confirmed that reading stimulates a complex network of circuits and signals in the brain. Plus, as you improve your reading ability, these networks become stronger and more sophisticated.

Access to the online resources is via an annual membership. Schools that participate in the face-to-face Power of Reading training course receive a year’s membership for free. Are you always forgetting things? Do you have a bunch of to-do lists , but you can't quite remember what's on them? Fear not – one of the advantages of reading books is that it can improve your memory. OECD (2010) PISA 2009 Results: Learning to Learn: Student Engagement, Strategies and Practices p. 32-4] ↩Children who read books often at age 10 and more than once a week at age 16 gain higher results in maths, vocabulary and spelling tests at age 16 than those who read less regularly. 9 There is much to be welcomed in the updated framework, but we also want to ensure that schools and settings interpret this new guidance with a wider view about what we know works in the teaching of reading, particularly at the early stages. Nurture all pupils’ love of reading throughout their reading journey. Systematic, synthetic phonics is emphasised throughout as the prime approach to teaching early readers of all ages but ‘phonics is not sufficient on its own.’ As well as being part of the senior leadership team I have the pleasure of being the EYFS teacher and coordinator. During the Power of Reading* training I was able to work on some sample teaching sequences with our nursery and reception pupils. I can honestly say that my colleague and I were hooked from the beginning and so were the children. The choice of quality picturebooks on offer is extensive and is still continuing to grow. I was further delighted to find that within the collection I could select texts to match the personal interests of my children. The sequences themselves are incredibly detailed with a large range of literacy-focused and creative activity choices. They provide us with an excellent starting point for practitioners to build upon to support the needs of our individual learners. We do spend on movies and music, but why? It is for entertainment, isn’t it? Then why not simply read books with the same purpose? You would be surprised to know that some of your favorite movies or TV series were made after getting inspiration from some of the greatest novels.