Evaluating the impact of libraries’ creative reading work with emergent adult readers
Evaluating the impact of libraries’ creative reading work with emergent adult readers
By
Morris Hargreaves McIntyre
This report, "Confidence All Round", explores the individual and societal outcomes for emergent readers from libraries’ creative reading activity in partnership with the Skills for Life sector. The fit of these outcomes is mapped against the Shared Priorities and the Adult Literacy Core Curriculum to provide evidence of how the approach can help libraries and the Skills for Life sector achieve their objectives. Recommendations are made for enhancing the effectiveness of libraries’ creative reading activity at both a strategic and tactical level.
Introduction
The national Vital Link programme is building libraries’ capacity to motivate and sustain Skills for Life students and to attract more adults with low literacy levels into learning. Its main target audience is emergent readers – those adults whose literacy skills are at pre-
GCSE level but who are just getting into choosing and reading books for enjoyment. Its main focus is on harnessing the energy of libraries’ creative reading activity or ‘reader development’ and encouraging libraries to work in partnership with the Skills for Life sector.
Run by The Reading Agency in partnership with the National Literacy Trust and the National Reading Campaign, the Vital Link is part of the Books, Reading and Learning strand of the Government’s Framework for the Future strategy for public libraries being implemented by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). Morris Hargreaves McIntyre was appointed to explore the difference libraries’ creative reading activity, utilising the Vital Link approach, makes to emergent adult readers.
