Helen is a Senior Lecturer in education, and co-director of the Centre for Literacy and Social Justice at The Open University. Formerly a senior leader in primary schools and initial teacher educator, Helen now leads schools and universities across the UK in developing a culture of reading for pleasure through the yearlong OU Reading Schools programme and the OU/ UKLA student teacher reading for pleasure ambassador scheme. Her recent research has focused on whole school case-studies of change in Reading Teachers: Nurturing reading for pleasure, informal book talk in the early years and the impact on children’s reader identities, as well as a Reading and Writing for Pleasure framework.