Home > Rees Centre > Projects > Reading Together: Effectiveness of an Enhanced Book-Gifting Intervention

Reading Together: Effectiveness of an Enhanced Book-Gifting Intervention

The Project

Reading Together is a reading programme that has been co-designed by Queen’s University Belfast and the Rees Centre. It has been designed for children aged 7-9 in foster care and aims to help improve their reading skills.

Pilot phase: Sept 2018 to March 2019.

Main evaluation (Randomised controlled trial): June to December 2019.

See Reading Together project website

EXTERNAL TEAM MEMBERS: Queen’s University Belfast.

Reports and publications

Research Team

More Projects

  • Belonging in education: co-designing an evidence-informed model of practice
    April 2025 - March 2026
    Building on previous work, this project focuses on progressively working towards building more equitable and inclusive education systems, where belonging is the guiding principle.
    Discover more
  • Evaluation of the Pupil Premium Plus Post-16 Programme
    September 2022 - March 2025
    The Rees Centre is working in partnership with Cordis Bright on an evaluation for the Department for Education of its Pupil Premium Plus Post-16 programme.
    Discover more
  • Analysis of Costs in Traditional and Early Permanence Adoption Routes
    December 2023
    A newly completed project report exploring the costs of adoption in early permanence and traditional adoption routes is now available.
    Discover more
  • Understanding and responding to the needs of kinship families from Black and Asian communities
    April 2023 - October 2024
    Working in partnership with Kinship and supported by the KPMG Foundation this study will focus on kinship carers from Black and Asian communities, using interviews and standardised measures to better understand their experiences and needs and provide recommendations for practice and policy.
    Discover more
  • Evaluation of the Mockingbird programme
    May 2023
    We have been asked to evaluate the Mockingbird programme is part of the Department for Education (DfE) funded Supporting Families: Investing in Practice programme, which is expanding and rolling out promising interventions that came through the DfE’s Innovation Programme.
    Discover more
  • Future of Care
    November 2021 - October 2024
    National charity, Become, is working with the Rees Centre to develop a new tool to measure the success of care leavers.
    Discover more

More News

  • Students
    News
    Research helps shape new national standards for children’s health assessments
    November 13, 2025
    Read More
  • Students
    News
    Care leavers redefine what ‘success’ really means in new Oxford study
    November 11, 2025
    Read More
  • Students
    News
    Care-experienced young people co-author academic article on what ‘success’ means for care leavers
    October 16, 2025
    Read More
  • Students
    News
    New report calls for stronger support as virtual school heads’ duties extend to children with a social worker
    October 7, 2025
    Read More
  • Students
    News
    Rees DPhil Student Wins Best Poster
    October 3, 2025
    Read More
  • Students
    Blog
    Belonging and becoming: Rethinking children’s identity development in foster care and adoption
    September 29, 2025
    Read More

Project Details

Start date: January 2018
End date: January 2021
Funder: ESRC
Theme: Rees Centre; Theme 1: Language, Cognition and Development