Social reading environments are a key element of reading for pleasure pedagogy. Research tells us that the most successful environments enable children to browse, relax and engaged with a variety of reading materials.

"Social reading environments provide rich contexts for RfP pedagogy and are supported by teachers' knowledge of texts and readers (Cremin et al., 2014)."

Book-rich, engaging school reading environments inspire and sustain reading communities. Classrooms, corridors, nooks and crannies, indoors and out, are all used to encourage children to exercise choice and explore texts that tempt them. The spaces and places should be supported with time to browse and encouragement to interact informally about reading.

View this chat between Sonia Thompson Head of St Matthews C of E Primary School in Birmingham and Roger McDonald, Senior Lecturer at Greenwich University and President of the UKLA, and find out what you can do to create the most engaging reading environments in your setting.

Sonia Thompson comments on how to make sure that the spaces are not just in the classroom but around the school, outside the school, that they are well used, well developed, and changed on a regular basis. Physically engaging they should entice children in and encourage informal book talk and the sharing of reading recommendations.

Roger McDonald continues and talks about the Teachers as Readers project, which asked teachers to identify what they read, when they read, how they read. On reflection, readers realised that they tend to snuggle up themselves when relaxing and reading, and that they often had a range of reading material going on at the same time. This led the teachers to adapt their own environments making them cosy, giving children a wider choice, and timetabling independent reading time.

Access this visual one page resource from OU RfP explaining why they're so important.

We'd love you to share your social reading environments with us on social media, share on LoveReading4Schools Twitter using the #SocialReadingEnvironments hashtag and let's inspire eachother with ideas.

To find out more visit www.ourfp.org
and read the OU feature Reading Teachers: teachers who read and readers who teach

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