While anyone who knows anything about education (and especially primary education) will know that literacy is a Very Big Deal, our guests this episode want to talk about something very specific and slightly different: reading for pleasure. Could it be that such a strong focus on literacy skills might mean that the simple pleasure of reading things for fun might be getting squeezed out? How can we as teachers help our pupils to be motivated to read for pleasure?

In the last of our suite of episodes this year on the theme of literacy (the others being episodes 6 and 7), we're joined by Jo Bowers from Cardiff Metropolitan University, Claire Douglas from Clytha Primary School in Newport and Lucy Matthews from Llanedeyrn Primary School in Cardiff to discuss how they have set up a 'reading for pleasure' group for teachers to support them in knowing what books are out there and how to get pupils reading.

If you're inspired by this episode to investigate what support is out there to get a reading for pleasure culture going in your school, you can email Jo directly at jbowers@cardiffmet.ac.uk. You can read the report on ethnic diversity in childrens' books that Claire mentions in the episode here.

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Recorded in C2.11 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 20th January 2020

Teaching Reading for Pleasure with Jo Bowers, Claire Douglas and Lucy Matthews