School staff as readers

Be passionate about reading

Reading for pleasure and reading widely makes you a great reading role model. Regardless of the age of your students or the subject you teach, the message you send when students know you are a reader matters.

The passion I am asking for from teachers is a passion beyond the pay cheque. It's a passion for children's books, as well as for their own reading, for if teachers don't love to read, why on earth should children?
— Mem Fox

Explore our Teachers Creating Readers Framework to see how being a reading role model connects with other strategies for engaging students with reading.

Teachers Creating Readers Framework

In 2021, Sue McDowall, a senior researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER), undertook a study for the National Library's Pūtoi Rito Communities of Readers initiative. It explored how teachers who are readers support reading for pleasure in their schools and classrooms.

Following the study, McDowall outlined a range of effective strategies the teachers used. Those related to teachers as readers were:

• sharing their own reader identities

• modelling reading for pleasure

• setting aside time to read and become more familiar with children’s literature.

Teachers as readers in New Zealand primary and intermediate schools — Sue McDowall's report.

How teachers who read create readers — Sue McDowall discusses her study exploring how teachers who are readers support reading for pleasure in their schools and classrooms.

What does it mean to be a reader?

If you don't consider yourself to be a reader, McDowall believes you can still share an enthusiasm for reading:

… we have such a narrow idea of what counts as reading that people think they’re not a reader because they're not reading Jane Austen or don’t fit with our traditional idea of what a reader does. I’d suggest thinking about what they are reading, whether they're reading when they're playing video games or reading Wikipedia posts entries. The secret is to find the topic they're passionate about or the sort of reading they might do and bring it into the classroom.
— How teachers who read create readers — an interview with Sue McDowall on teachers as readers

Share your reading life with students

A useful starting point for being a reading model is to consider how you share your reading life as part of your teaching life.

The paper, ‘Teachers as readers: Perspectives on the importance of reading in teachers’ classroom and lives’ by Michelle Commeyras et al is an interesting discussion about the way teachers share their reading lives with their students. The teachers considered aspects not commonly thought of as part of reading instruction in the classroom, for example:

• how they read

• what and when they read

• how they share their reading with friends and colleagues.

Reading culture boosts literacy and classroom connections

Reflect on your reading experience

In her seminars, Michelle Commeyras asked teachers to reflect on how they read. The teachers asked themselves, ‘Is this something I share with my students? Is this something that would be useful for students to know?’ For example, as readers, ask these questions:

• Do we always finish the book? What are the reasons we abandon or persevere with a book?

• Do we read ahead? Find out the ending to enjoy the book more?

• Who is reading what?

• Who has a reading friend?

• What books make you cry?

• What is reading for pleasure?

• Should I read a big book?

• Are you a ‘born-again’ reader? What was the book that brought you back to reading?

Reflect on your teaching practice

The seminar attendees thought about their teaching practice. For example, do they talk:

• with students about their reading lives

• about how their reading influences their writing

• about new vocabulary in their reading and how they go about understanding it

• to students about who influences them as readers, who inspires them.

They reflected on whether they tell students about:

• the reader relationships they form with students, family, and friends and with fiction and non-fiction characters

• the questions they have while reading

• how they select something to read, why they sometimes do not finish a text and why they sometimes reread a text

• troubles they have had with reading

• the strategies they find helpful as readers

• what they are learning from reading.

Consideration was also given to whether the teachers:

• let their students see them reading a variety of texts

• find connections between their reading and their teaching of students

• teach passionately.

Building on the research from Commeyras et al is the Teachers as Readers study (led by Professor Teresa Cremin for The Open University and UK Literacy Association). They noted that reading teachers — teachers who read and readers who teach — made a positive impact on students’ desire to read at school and at home.

Reading teachers: Teachers who read and readers who teach — research summary, review tool and classroom strategies.

Be a reading role model

Read.

When you read, you show children how and why it is important.

In primary and secondary schools, it's important for all school staff to share and recommend reading material and books with students. Don't leave it to the English department. For example, if you are a science teacher, share biographies of great scientists, read aloud from a science fiction novel or share books you enjoy outside of the science field.

PISA found that there was correlation between enthusiastic teachers and student achievement in reading so consider your role as the teacher as a reader. Share what you are reading with students, what you’re learning as a result. Share new words you’re learning, new information. It’s even better if teachers across learning areas share their enthusiasm for reading.
— Dr Irene Anderson, Literacy for secondary learning area teachers (26:57), 2022

Students need to see a range of people as readers. A school-wide reading culture provides opportunities for all members of the school community to be reading role models.

Ways to help provide positive reading role models include:

• timetabling lunchtime read-aloud sessions where a range of staff members share books (this could be part of a duty)

• asking members of your school community (nurse, receptionist, groundskeeper, sports coordinator) to share books at assembly

• inviting guest speakers who will start or finish their presentations with a book chat

• scheduling author visits and allowing students time to interact with them through workshops

• having whānau share-a-book sessions at school.

Why we should all be reading aloud to children (YouTube video, 9:29) — Rebecca Bellingham TEDxYouth.

School-wide reading culture

My reading superhero — children share their experiences of effective reading role models in short, animated videos.

Expand your reading horizons

Teresa Cremin’s Teachers as Readers research showed that teachers need a ‘wide and up-to-date knowledge of children’s and young adult (YA) literature and other texts’ to recommend books and help students select books they’ll enjoy.

Open University's Reading for Pleasure website — read more about the research and find resources.

Widening teachers’ reading repertoires: Moving beyond a popular childhood canon — Cremin et al, 2024.

As well as reading fiction, consider non-fiction topics that are likely to appeal.

Think about:

• what you will read — genres, authors, series, formats

• where you will get your books from — school libraries, public libraries or the National Library.

National Library's school lending service

If my reading life was only for myself, I would never read a sports book … setting my own reading desires aside at times and reading wildly in order for my students to have the opportunity to do the same … I need to know all sorts of books … And I need to recognize the gaps that may exist within our experiences and whose stories are centered in order to be able to actively work on filling them.
— Pernille Ripp

Ways to expand your knowledge of children’s literature

You can increase your knowledge of children's literature in the following ways:

• Set yourself a challenge to increase your children's and Young adult (YA) book knowledge or join an existing challenge such as the Goodreads reading challenge.

• Keep a personal or classroom reading log online, for example, on Goodreads or LibraryThing.

• Ask your students for recommendations about what they think you should read. It shows you value their reading opinions.

• Ask for recommendations from local public librarians and bookshops.

• Are there expectations for teachers to be readers at your school? Set up a staff book club, promote books and book discussions in the staff rooms or during morning tea.

• Have library staff and literacy leaders work together to increase staff knowledge of Māori, Pasifika, world and accessible resources, including digital resources. This could form part of your professional learning programme.

• Attend your local school library network meetings with the Services to Schools facilitator. Contact 0800 LIB LINE (0800 542 5463) for more information.

Resources to keep up to date with books

Books and Reads — for kids and teens — use our Books and Reads tool to explore, find, and share picture books and reviews.

Create readers blog posts — Services to Schools blog with reviews of books and information about events and issues around reading.

#NatLibReads — Services to Schools Twitter feed @L2_S2S which highlights a book every day (Monday to Friday).

Storylines — lists from the Notable Book Awards, current and previous years.