I'm an English teacher with a Bachelor in English and Media Studies and a Master of Arts in English. I've worked as a teacher aide, a library assistant, and I'm a published YA author (as J L Pawley). 

On behalf of Duffy Books in Homes and Storylines Children's Literature Trust, I've travelled up and down the country promoting the importance of reading to primary and secondary schools of all sizes and locations, from Taipa in the Far North to Kaitangata in South Otago. 

I became an author to write books for the students I taught as a teacher aide, and I became a teacher to spend more time talking about books with students like those I visited as an author.

I have worked at a range of schools, but most recently and for the longest at a large boys' high school in Auckland. Despite my enormous enthusiasm and best efforts to convince, coax, and cajole, I struggled to engage my classes with reading for pleasure, or indeed, even to read the one book they were assigned to study for the year, their knowledge of which they were going to be assessed on! In fact, some students actively avoided even reading short stories. So, I went looking for ideas, resources, and evidence to help me convince my students that reading was worth their time.

While I found a great deal of information and resources for developing a whole school reading community, and quite a lot of advice for small-group dedicated interventions, there was very little that I could actually use in my own classes, on my own. For example, how could I convince my students that spending 15 minutes reading a book at the start of every class was worth their time, when their friends' classes got to use that time to work on their assessments / essays / projects? How could I approach school leadership about a school-wide reading culture when the school community was experiencing a period of upheaval, not least due to COVID, but also due to other major schoolwide programmes (character education, mental health, etc.) that were in the process of being piloted?

I needed clear guidelines, resources, and activities to independently implement in my own classroom, but there was a startling lack of evidence available.

So, I decided to try bridge some of that gap. And the Learning to Love Reading in the Digital Age study began.

I would like to acknowledge the support of my employer at the time, Westlake Boys' High School, for making significant accommodations for me to begin my PhD study. My colleagues and the school leadership were and are incredibly understanding and enthusiastic about my research, and I'm glad to be able to share strong evidence of good teaching practise and plenty of strong useful resources in return.

I am also a grateful recipient of the Massey University Doctoral Scholarship, and I was also fortunate to receive a Graduate Research School grant, which has allowed me to develop the programme with the resources I needed to make it more fun and accessible for the students.

My deepest gratitude to the collaborating and participating teachers on this project, as well as the participating students and their whanau for allowing me to observe them in their classrooms, and for sharing their learning and thoughts.

Thanks to my doctoral supervisors, Professor Lucila Carvalho, Dr Nick Holm, and Dr Vickel Narayan, for their support, guidance, and patience.

Finally, I must acknowledge the love and support of my family, who have been there every single step of the way. Thank you ♥️