Raising Standards of Literacy in Boys Using Comics with Paul Warren

We’re looking at literacy again today, and particularly what seems to be a perennial problem: the engagement of boys with reading. Our guest is Paul Warren, a former primary headteacher who now advises schools across a wide area of south Wales, and who is in the final stages of a PhD investigating this very area. His approach is to use comics to engage young pupils with stories, and he’s got plenty of interesting things to tell us about his findings, as well as about how rewarding it is to find things out for yourself through action research in the classroom.

Paul also brings us some nice ideas for the wellbeing slot, plus a book recommendation for anyone who wants educational research explained in clear terms (which is pretty much all of us!).

Paul’s book recommendations for this episode were:

Coe, R. et al., 2017. Research methods and methodologies in education 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage

McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding comics: [the invisible art]. New York: HarperPerennial.