Teenage Reading Seminars
Reimagining teenage reading
Not all young people will take the same, traditional route into reading and part of the challenge is supporting them to find their own routes into discovering a love of reading.
Join us for our exclusive National Year of Reading events to explore how we can find routes into reading and validate teenage reading experiences. The National Literacy Trust will also our latest research on teenage reading; what we know about young people’s engagement with reading, including teenage boys’ reading, and what they tell us could help (re)ignite their interest. We’ll look at how recognising and validating teenagers’ interests and reading choices can build a sense of agency and identity, and how schools can build on that to sustain engagement
Choose your event
-
Join us on Friday 13 March 2026, during the National Year of Reading, to explore how we can find routes into reading and validate teenage reading experiences.Learn more about Teenage reading seminar: York.
-
Join us on Friday 20 March 2026, during the National Year of Reading, to explore how we can find routes into reading and validate teenage reading experiences.Learn more about Teenage reading seminar: Plymouth.
-
Our 2026 conference speakers have been announced. Check back here for the latest updates on speakers and workshops. Booking now open!Learn more about Secondary Conference 2026: Speakers and schedule.
Meet our guest speakers
Meet the five experts we have lined up to present at our seminars this March and discover what they will be discussing during each session. Note that not all speakers will be attending both York and Plymouth.
Hannah Berry
- Attending both York and Plymouth
Hannah Berry is an award-winning comics creator, writer, cartoonist and illustrator. She is the author of three award-winning graphic novels, Livestock, Adamtine and Britten & Brülightly, and has contributed comics to numerous publications from 2000AD to the New England Journal of Medicine. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was the 2019 to 2021 UK Comics Laureate.
Comics: A new leaf for literacy
With more young people choosing comics as their preferred reading, Hannah’s session will discuss how comics and graphic novels are more than just entertainment, how they can also be powerful tools for literacy, empathy, and creativity. She will explore the value of the medium and how to harness its potential; how comics can support reading enjoyment and engagement; and practical ways to shift perspectives and validate comic reading.
Steven Camden
- Attending Plymouth only
Steven Camden - aka Polarbear- is an internationally acclaimed spoken word artist, award-winning author, poet and storyteller. He writes novels, plays, screenplays and poems celebrating his mixed heritage, placing his participatory practise and use of story in educational and community settings to celebrate imagination at the core of all his work.
Dr Darren Chetty
- Attending both York and Plymouth
Dr Darren Chetty is a Lecturer in English Education at UCL Institute of Education and an affiliate at the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation. He contributed to the bestselling book, The Good Immigrant, edited by Nikesh Shukla. Darren has published six books to date, as co-author and co-editor. Darren provided training for the Carnegie Award judges and advises on the CLPE Reflecting Realities research and Penguin / Runnymede Trust’s Lit in Colour project. His debut picture book, I’m Going to Make a Friend, illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat, is published by Little Tiger. He co-authored with Karen Sands O’Connor, Beyond the Secret Garden? Racially Minoritised People in British Children’s Books (English Media Centre).
The pleasure and the pain of reading
Darren will explore the place of reading inside and beyond classrooms. Arguing that literature as an artform can evoke a wide range of emotions, he considers how teachers can support students in cultivating and extending their reading tastes and how we can develop classroom cultures that support students engaging with texts that are not always pleasurable.
Paul Clayton
- Attending York only
Paul Clayton has worked in education in a wide variety of roles for over thirty years. He has been a teacher and senior leader in secondary schools, a local authority consultant, Director of the National Association for the Teaching of English and university lecturer. He has considerable experience in working with practitioners at all levels to design, develop and deliver teaching pedagogy that has demonstrable positive impact on improving the life chances of the young people they teach.
Routes into reading
Some teenagers spend more time engaging with multi-modal and moving image texts than they do reading books. This session will consider the ways in which these two practices might be brought together to provide meaningful reading experiences.
Manjeet Mann
- Attending both York and Plymouth
Manjeet Mann is a multi-award-winning author, playwright, screenwriter, and actress. Her debut YA novel, Run Rebel, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and won the CILIP Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Award, as well as a number of other awards. Her second novel, The Crossing, won the Costa Children’s Book Award, among others and was also shortlisted for numerous other prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, Waterstones Children’s Book prize and the YA Book Award. Manjeet writes picture books too, including Small’s Big Dream, which won the Readers’ Choice Award at the Diverse Book Awards. She adapted Run Rebel for the stage with Pilot Theatre, earning Best Production at the Off West End Stage Awards. Manjeet lives in Scotland.
Making writers, making readers
Drawing on over 20 years as an actor and writer, Manjeet will lead a practical, story-driven session exploring how creativity and imagination can open routes into reading. Through playful, hands-on activities, participants will write, perform, and create — all in the spirit of showing how making writers can also make readers, and how play and performance can reignite a love of words.