Our Purpose
We exist to change children’s life stories through the joy of reading. We partner with schools to develop whole school reading cultures and to provide one-to-one reading support.
Nurturing an enjoyment of reading
We want every child to read. We improve children’s literacy by promoting a reading for pleasure culture in primary schools, with a focus on supporting children in the most disadvantaged communities.
The impact of illiteracy
Children who struggle with reading are more likely to fall behind, both in school and life. Reading can make a transformational difference to a child’s life.
What do the statistics say about literacy in the UK?
-
1 in 4
children leave primary school unable to read well*
-
43%
of adults in England don’t have the literacy skills they need to understand everyday health information**
-
£81bn
impact to the UK economy every year due to low literacy***
-
57%
of prisoners are unable to read to the expected level of an 11-year-old****
-
Life expectancy
is vastly reduced for those born in communities with the most serious literacy challenges*****
*Department for Education Reading England’s Future (literacytrust.org.uk)
**Public Health England, Improving health literacy to reduce health inequalities, 2015
***World Literacy Foundation, The Economic & Social Cost of Illiteracy, 2022
****UK Ministry of Justice
The importance of reading for pleasure
Research shows that children and young people who enjoy reading are nearly four times more likely to read above the level expected for their age compared with those who do not enjoy reading.
Clark, C. & Teravainen-Goff, A. (2020). Children and young people’s reading in 2019: Findings from our Annual Literacy Survey. National Literacy Trust. p.13.
Why we approach the whole school
We partner with schools to take a whole school reading culture approach. Developing a whole school reading culture has a positive impact on pupils” love of reading by encouraging children to read more often and with a deeper level of engagement. Read more about Rich Reading Cultures.
Children across the school ask to read books, including those on display in public areas. We have noticed an increase in the number of children who choose to read in their spare time, or when they are feeling down.
Our theory of change
Our theory of change shows the positive difference we make in our schools and to the children we support.
Many children leave primary school with poor reading skills, leading to lower educational attainment, adult literacy challenges and barriers to life success.
Many lack one-to-one reading opportunities, role models, access to books or libraries and often don't enjoy reading.
Schools also face limited resources to foster a reading culture and support reading for pleasure.
Recent research helps us to understand the factors contributing to this problem. Studies indicate that levels of reading enjoyment in children are low (National Literacy Trust, 2022), that large numbers of children do not own their own book or have access to a library (National Literacy Trust and Cole Brown Clark, 2022) and that many children do not have opportunities for one-to-one reading or reading role models (National Literacy Trust and National Governance Association, 2022).
We improve children’s literacy by promoting a reading for pleasure culture in primary schools, with a focus on supporting children in the most disadvantaged communities.
We want more children to leave primary school having discovered the joy of reading, which better sets them up for success.
Impact report
We’ve worked hard to scale our reach and deepen our impact to support more children. Read more in our latest Impact Report below.
Reading for pleasure
- Read more and gain confidence (Cremin et al, 2021)
- Improve their reading skills (Clark & Rumbold, 2006)
- Become happier, healthier and experience better wellbeing and self-esteem (BookTrust, 2023)
- Make progress at school in reading attainment and across the curriculum (DfE 2012, NLT 2020, McGrane et al, 2017, Open University 2021)
- Ultimately overcome barriers presented by disadvantage (BookTrust, 2023)
We are continually aiming to create a culture of reading in our school so reading is seen as a whole school priority and whole community priority. The Bookmark grant has helped hugely in enabling us to do this.
