Institute of Education evaluation of 'Beyond Booked Up'

Through its Booked Up scheme, Booktrust gives free books to every Year 7 child in the country helping to support independent reading by offering those children the opportunity to choose and keep their own book to read. Booktrust have recently extended the Booked Up offer with Beyond Booked Up.

Beyond Booked Up is aimed at pupils in both Year 7 and 8 and will include a range of accessible resources designed to help develop speaking, listening, writing and reading skills for 11-13 year olds. Beyond Booked Up has been designed to ignite pupils' interest in books and reading by introducing them to a range of the very best writing across a number of different formats. With resources including a brand new Booktrust Anthology of Short Stories, creative introductions to graphic novels and exciting play scripts, the new offer will use the Booked Up titles as a launch pad for an array of other activities.

The National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC), part of the Institute of Education is conducting an evaluation of Beyond Booked Up. NRDC is working with 30 schools and over 4000 pupils, half of whom are participating in the Beyond Booked Up scheme with the other half acting as a control group.

Over this 18 month long research project, NRDC will look to identify not just the overall success of the intervention but also which individual elements are most effective in engaging with pupils' interests.  All participating pupils will take a reading test and an attitudinal survey in February 2012 and again in July 2013. There will also be short surveys with teachers and interviewed focus groups with pupils looking at each element of the Beyond Booked Up programme.

It is the intention that this web page grows with the project and will include both details and instructions for participating schools and a first site of resulting reports and findings for a more general readership.

Further details about Beyond Booked Up can be found at www.booktrust.org.uk.