Reading and libraries have made me who I am. In childhood I lived a thousand lives and saw a thousand places even before I started my first job at the age of 15 at our local public library in Webster Groves, Missouri. At the University of San Diego, academic reading helped me to understand complex ideas and think in nuanced ways. Whilst working at Webster University Library doing post-graduate teacher training, I met a Dutchman who became my husband: together we have lived in 5 countries (Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, UK) and had 5 children (Patrick, Carolyn, Rebecca, Thomas and Kevin). Reading aloud to my children took me to a whole new level of emotional connection with books as I experienced the bond that story created between us. As a result, after moving to the UK in 2005, I did an MA in Children’s Literature from Roehampton University. I then returned to work, beginning with a part-time job in a joint public/school library in West Berkshire where I avidly read young people’s fiction for several years. When my children were older, I returned to teaching; instead of teaching history, as I had done early in my career, I taught English, which has been enjoyable — though in and of itself not enough.

It is reading for pleasure and progress that sets me on fire. Reading has brought me joy; it has taught me how to walk in another’s footsteps; it has enabled me to explore other times and faraway continents; it has helped me understand my emotions during traumatic moments of my life. Academic and professional reading has stimulated me, inspired me, challenged me and helped me to understand the world around me and the ideas and people in it.

And yet many young people don’t find reading enjoyable, rewarding or instructive because they don’t read fluently or because they can’t find texts that inspire, interest or challenge them. In some cases, students will not be able to fully access opportunities in the adult world because of their struggles with reading, making it an urgent moral imperative to address their barriers.

I have realised in the last few years that my enthusiasm and developing expertise can make a real difference in the reading lives and indeed academic and later professional success of young people. As the Reading Intervention Specialist at King Alfred’s Academy in Wantage, Oxfordshire, I have worked hard to build a reading culture with a particular focus on struggling and reluctant readers – and over the last year in particular we have seen burgeoning success in terms of supporting ‘failing’ readers, encouraging reading for pleasure and  developing academic reading across the curriculum.

This blog is my home for resources I have created to encourage, support and develop reading in a variety of ways; it is a place to find links to leading bloggers/thinkers/researchers working to inspire reading and address reading barriers; and it is where I will explore my thoughts and experiences as a teacher and reader who wants reading to have the same impact on others that it has had on me.

‘Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world’ – Napoloen Bonaparte

July 2019