The real face of reading education in the U.K.

Focusing on the voices of primary and junior school children

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present, as a reference for reading education within Japan, reports on different aspects of actual reading education within the United Kingdom. More specifically, the paper consists of two investigative reports. The first is an outline of a nationwide survey of reading conducted by the National Literacy Trust. According to that survey, four books a month represents a boundary level in promoting liking for reading and positive impressions of reading. Moreover, reading enjoyment influences children's reading abilities. The second report presents data obtained from interviews with 21 children attending English boarding schools. One particularly noteworthy aspect of the data is the range of activities for reading education devised at the schools, such as encouragement through a ‘reading hero’ award, peer reading together with an adult, the creation of reading space from converted double-decker, and combinations of reading and creative writing activities.