What is empathy, why do we value it and how does reading help develop it?
These are a few of the questions we will be discussing in the third English Association Reading in the Primary School webinar.
Join Megan Dixon and colleagues to explore these questions and hear from the researchers, school leaders, and teachers about how they approach reading for empathy in the classroom. As always, the chat will focus around wonderful texts to explore and tips about how to use them in the classroom.
You might also want to view the previous two events in this series:
Our speakers are:
Megan Dixon has a wealth of school leadership, school improvement and policy experience, including working for the Education Endowment Foundation, as a MAT Executive Leader, as a Local Authority English consultant, as a Head Teacher, teacher trainer and a teacher. She has balanced a career in school with an academic career and is currently studying for a doctorate at the University of Sussex, UK. Her specialist interests lie in the teaching and learning of literacy (in particular reading comprehension), early years, special educational needs, language development and leadership. Megan writes a weekly column for the Times Educational Supplement, regularly presents at conferences and is often found writing in collaboration with researchers and academics.
Martin Galway is Head of School Programmes at National Literacy Trust and a Fellow of the English Association. Martin specialises in reading and writing development and the interactions between them. Particular interests include reading fluency instruction and comprehension, literacy difficulties, contextualised grammar, and spoken language. He is deeply committed to bridging research and practice in his field. Before joining the National Literacy Trust, he worked as a Teaching and Learning Adviser for Herts for Learning Primary English Team, as a leading teacher for English, as a primary school teacher, as a lecturer in film, and as a civil servant working in the EY sector. Martin has delivered keynotes, presentations and research findings at a range of national and international conferences.
Sam Jones: I am current English Lead and Year 6 Class Teacher at a school in Hulme. I have been a teacher for seven years and have taught Year 2, Year 5 and Year 6. I have moved around a fair bit and have always enjoyed teaching in schools where there is a mixture of diversity in culture. I am always looking for ways to incorporate reading throughout the curriculum especially with books that present situation with which our children can understand and link their own experiences to.
Sarah Mears is a director and co-founder of EmpathyLab, a charitable social enterprise promoting the power of books to build children’s empathy. She is also Programme Manager at Libraries Connected supporting public libraries in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Sarah was awarded an MBE for Services to Children and Young People in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 2018 and in 2022 became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
