Reading Together

Reading Together™ is a low-cost, research-based workshop programme for parents, children and teachers. It is designed to help parents support their children's reading at home more effectively (and thereby also support teachers in their classroom programmes).

The programme has been shown to raise children's reading achievement in a sustained manner, and to improve relationships between children and parents, and between parents and teachers (the original research was a randomised, controlled trial - the gold standard used by US federal authorities)^1,2. It has been successfully implemented by teachers in various parts of New Zealand since 1982, and teachers find that the programme is practical and manageable^3,4.

The resources for the programme, and an Overview of Reading Together for schools, libraries and community groups, can be ordered here.

Reading Together is a programme comprising 4 workshops over 7 weeks, with each workshop lasting 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Learn More

Reading Together:

» has a specific focus on an area of learning (i.e. reading) that all parents recognise as being important

» enables parents to learn specific and constructive ways of helping at home

» is practical, user friendly and manageable for teachers, librarians, parents/whānau and children

» has significant positive effects on children’s literacy achievement and social development which are sustained over time

» enables teachers, parents/whānau and librarians to work together in informed and collaborative ways

» enables teachers and parents to support children’s reading more effectively than either teachers or parents can accomplish on their own

» builds positive relationships between children, parents/whānau, teachers and community librarians

» has a sound theoretical and research basis

Reading Together provides effective support for all children and their parents/whānau i.e.

» children who are struggling with reading

» children who are reluctant readers

» children who are competent readers

» children from junior primary to junior secondary school levels

» children and parents from diverse language/literacy, cultural, educational and socio-economic backgrounds

¹ Biddulph, J. (1983). A group programme to train parents of children with reading difficulties to tutor their children at home. MA Research Report. University of Canterbury, Christchurch.
² Biddulph, J & Tuck, B. (1983). Assisting parents to help their children with reading at home. Paper presented to the New Zealand Association for Research in Education. Wellington.
³ Biddulph, J. (1993, May). Teacher-parent partnership to support children's reading development. Paper presented to the NZ Reading Association Annual Conference, Christchurch.
⁴ Biddulph, J. & Allott, J. (2006). Reading Together: A programme which enables parents to help their children with reading at home - Overview. Reading Forum NZ, Vol 21, No 3, 20-27.