School reading volunteers: results of a postal survey of primary school head teachers in England

This article reports the results of a postal survey of primary school head teachers in England carried out in order to take a broad ‘sounding’ of mainstream practice with respect to volunteer help with reading within schools. The objective was to build up a general picture of the scale of the practice in schools and of its significance to teachers. From an initial random sample of 500 schools, an overall response rate of 76 per cent was achieved. Issues raised by the results include: (i) the special status of reading in the relationship between home and school; (ii) the issues of professionalism raised by head teachers with respect to the use of volunteer reading helpers; (iii) the question of whether parents' help with school reading can in all cases legitimately be called ‘parental’; and (iv) the relationship between volunteer help with reading and teachers' working conditions in a contracting education service.