| Summary: | This case study investigates 6- to 7-year-old children’s (n=14) attitudes towards reading and learning to read, and their definitions of a reader and reading in order to identify ways of increasing children’s motivation to read for pleasure which will be beneficial to their language skills and learning across the curriculum (Clark & Rumbold, 2006; Castles et al., 2018). This study’s aim is threefold. Firstly, to investigate the reading lives and attitudes of children at a British Ofsted rated Outstanding school which prides itself in fostering reading for pleasure (RfP). Secondly, this study aims to promote children’s voices by exploring their perspectives on reading in their own words. Thirdly, this research intends to ascertain whether the ‘Rivers of Reading’ (RoR) exercise may be usefully adapted to help younger participants talk about their experiences of learning to read and their attitudes towards reading. Participants offered insights into their attitudes towards pedagogical practices in literacy instruction and from this, it was possible to extrapolate practices that increase or decrease reading motivation by linking it to the literature on reading motivation and RfP pedagogical principles. These findings could be usefully implemented in other schools in the UK and add to the theoretical debate about the process of reading and learning to read. Furthermore, the successful adaptation of the RoR exercise, combined with in-depth qualitative interviews, offers a model for innovative rights-based research that places value on what children have to say.
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