How can we ensure we give our most disadvantaged students the gift of reading, not just the gift of books?
According to the National Literacy Trust, one in eight children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds don’t have a book of their own at home. This can make the decision to gift books to students seem like a quick win.
Given the correlation between early encounters with books and shared reading and language development, there’s no wonder that schools may choose to take part in book gifting schemes using Pupil Premium funding, or select books in-house to gift pupils.
It seems logical: improve equity around accessibility to books and we ‘gift’ privileged access into the worlds (and words) that books often hold. However, recent research about the impact of book gifting schemes suggest that they need to be long-term to positively influence home literacy environments. Past EEF trials have corroborated that book gifting approaches can fail in reaching their aims of improving reading and building interest in reading.
So, what can we do to make sure that book gifting isn’t just a one-off event that has little positive impact on reading?
One consideration is to take a wraparound approach to reading access. You could:
- Build reading habits in school and at home by setting aside designated time and space to read.
- Include the chance for children to listen to an adult regularly reading aloud to them as part of their reading routine.
- Support children to choose their own book and build anticipation and positive attitudes to reading.
- Support parents in reading at home, such as making use of the TRUST Talk resource.
- Follow up activities that incentivise regular reading habits – for example with book club sessions.
Give a child a book…
For older children, book gifting could fall under the umbrella of ‘Wider Strategies’ from our tiered approach to Pupil Premium spending. It’s similar to the common decision to give revision guides and set texts to students at GCSE. But just like with books that are gifted for pleasure, the intention and impact may be lost if we don’t consider whole school strategies to make these texts accessible to students.
When it comes to buying students revision or study guides, there are important questions to consider:
- Is there a dedicated quiet space in school for students to study?
- Is the common language around independent study in school focused on ‘study habits’ rather than revision?
- Are students equipped with knowledge about memory and how they learn to help demystify the study process?
- Can staff routinely model the metacognitive strategies needed to access a revision guide – for example, using an index, glossary or contents page and modelling how to understand the relationship between text and diagrams?
Just like most targeted pupil premium strategies, sensitive implementation is required to support book gifting strategies. It’s important to consider how they’re placed in the context of longer-term, whole-school strategies that promote a reading culture.
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