This report presents the findings of a small, exploratory research project carried out by NZCER for the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa (the National Library) in 2025.
The research involved a case study of one full primary school participating in the pilot PLD programme Pūtoi Rito: School Communities of Readers offered by the National Library in 2025. The programme aims to support reading for pleasure by strengthening knowledge, pedagogy, practice, collaboration, and resources in school communities.
He kitenga | Findings
Growing variation in the development of reading identities over time
Teachers drew from their experiences teaching at a range of year levels and schools to describe the knowledge, beliefs, and practices typical of students as readers by the end of Years 3, 6, and 8. There was general agreement that by the end of Year 3, students were typically enthusiastic readers who knew the topics and types of stories they liked reading or listening to and some could name an author they liked.
By the end of Year 6 a gap had emerged between those who did and those who did not read for pleasure. Those who did could typically talk about the topics, types of texts, authors, and series that they did and did not like and say why, access the books they wanted, and describe their practices as recreational readers. Those who did not read for pleasure could, like the Year 3 students, identify the types of texts and stories that they liked. By the end of Year 8, the gap between those who did and did not choose to read had become “wider” and “entrenched”. Year 8 students who saw themselves as readers could typically talk about the topics, types of texts, authors, series, and genre that they did and did not like and explain why, access the books they wanted, and describe their knowledge, beliefs, and practices as recreational readers, and reasons for these. These students tended to have peers who they talked about books with, and got book recommendations from.
In contrast, those Year 8 students who did not read for pleasure struggled to identify books they enjoyed other than those a teacher had read to them at school, a book or series they had read as a much younger person, or books that involved diagrams or illustrations supported by small amounts of text.
There was alignment between the knowledge, beliefs, and practices described by teachers and by students at each of the three levels. However, due to the small and exploratory nature of this study, generalisations cannot be made from these findings and further research is needed.
How to foster students’ identities as readers
The school staff involved in this research used ideas of their own and built on ideas from the Pūtoi Rito PLD to foster their students’ identities as readers. Teachers modelled, explicitly taught, and provided their students with opportunities to practise what it means to be a reader through a range of activities. These activities included listening to stories for pleasure, choosing books of interest, reading for pleasure, and talking with others about books. These activities are consistent with those identified in the international and national research literature as important for student engagement and motivation as readers (see, e.g., Batini & De Carlo, 2025; Boyask et al., 2021; Cremin et al., 2023; Ivey & Friddle, 2025; McDonald et al., 2023, McDowall, 2021; Merga, 2023; Rodriguez Leon et al., 2025; Tregenza et al., 2023). In addition, the findings from this study suggest that time spent talking about reading identity may strengthen students’ reading engagement and their understanding of themselves and and others as readers.