Children’s perspectives on reading for pleasure: What can we learn from them and how can we adapt our practice accordingly?

Alice Reedy, Teacher, Kaizen Primary School (Part of East London Research School), UK There is a broad range of existing research dedicated to the subject of reading for pleasure and the advocacy of engaging in this activity as a key factor in children’s educational development, both academic and social (Sainsbury and Schagen, 2004; Petscher, 2010; Sullivan and Brown, 2015; Whitten et al., 2016; Clark and Teravainen, 2017; DfE, 2017). Policymakers and researchers seem to have reached a consensus that reading for pleasure has a significant positive impact on a child’s future life chances in terms of educational success; the OECD report ‘Reading for change’ (2002) goes as far as to suggest that said impact is more important in indicating the future academic success of a child than their socioeconomic background and can also have a positive impact on a child’s future social mobility. As educators, we are therefore professionally and morally obligated by the strength and weal