How to boost reading enjoyment and engagement

Get your school community fired up about reading – from reluctant parents/carers to hard-to-reach groups like Key Stage 2 boys. Eve Cairns Vollans shares a number of creative approaches that sparked a reading frenzy at her school. Learn how to use social media to encourage reading at home, create a community bookshop to make reading more accessible, and swap outdated paper reading journals for video reading diaries – something that increased home reading in Eve’s school by 38%.

Last reviewed on 5 February 2025
School types: AllSchool phases: AllRef: 50489
Contents
  1. Watch our on-demand talk 
  2. Resources for this talk 
  3. Meet our speaker

Watch our on-demand talk 

This video offers 'bite-sized' CPD for teachers, with accompanying handouts/resources.

It represents the speaker's role and approach (and where relevant, their school/trust's approach) at the time it was recorded, but still serves as both a source of inspiration and practical tips for you to use in practice.

Please note: any commercial providers, products or resources mentioned in this talk, and relevant links here, are on the speaker's own recommendation and should not be considered an endorsement by The Key.

 

Resources for this talk 

How to boost reading enjoyment and engagement PDF, 180.7 KB
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How to boost reading enjoyment and engagement DOCX, 78.0 KB
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Meet our speaker

Eve Cairns Vollans is headteacher at Woodlands Park Primary School, Devon. Eve has been teaching since 2002 and has taught in China, as well as a 9 year secondment to Frankfurt, Germany. In 2020, Eve was awarded The Egmont Reading for Pleasure