Listening to Readers: Understanding Children’s Experiences of Joyful Reading in Government Schools in India
About Us
Pratham Books is a not-for-profit children’s book publisher with a mission to ensure that every child has access to high-quality, affordable books in languages they understand. Over the past two decades, the organisation has created engaging storybooks that help children discover the joy of reading. To date, Pratham Books has published more than 9,000 books in 31 languages and distributed over 50 million printed books and story cards across India.
In addition to its print publishing work, Pratham Books launched StoryWeaver in 2015—an open-access digital platform that hosts multilingual storybooks under open licences. StoryWeaver enables users to read, download, print, translate, and adapt books, making reading materials widely accessible to educators, organisations, and children around the world.
Through its publishing, digital platforms, and partnerships with governments, Pratham Books works to expand access to children’s literature and promote a culture of reading among children from diverse linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds.
1. Background and Rationale
Over the past decade, significant attention has been given to improving foundational literacy outcomes among young children in India. Much of this work has focused on strengthening early reading skills such as decoding and comprehension, and large-scale assessments and programme evaluations have primarily measured these skill-based outcomes. While these metrics are important, they provide limited insight into how children themselves experience books, stories, and reading environments—particularly in low-resource contexts where access to books is limited outside school.
While international research increasingly recognises the role of reading for pleasure and emotional engagement with books in shaping lifelong reading habits, most studies in low- and middle-income countries including South Asia, have focused primarily on reading skills and access to books. There remains limited evidence on how young children themselves experience books and reading environments, particularly in low-resource contexts.
This study seeks to address this gap by exploring how children in government schools engage with books and reading environments after participating in a joyful reading programme. By centering children’s voices and experiences, the study aims to generate insights into how access to books and reading opportunities influences children’s reading engagement, attitudes, and emerging sense of themselves as readers.
2. Overview of the Joyful Reading Programme
The programme that forms the focus of this study aims to increase children’s access to engaging storybooks and create joyful reading environments in government schools.
A core component of the programme involves establishing classroom reading corners that provide curated collections of illustrated storybooks. These reading corners help create print-rich environments where children can browse, select, and interact with books independently.
The programme also includes capacity-building sessions for teachers to support the effective use of storybooks in classrooms. Training focuses on storytelling techniques, read-aloud practices, and activities that encourage children to interact with books and develop positive associations with reading.
Through these combined efforts of access to books, educator support, and reading-related activities, the programme aims to familiarise children with stories, encourage interaction with books, and gradually build habits of voluntary reading.
3. Study Purpose
The purpose of this study is to understand how children experience access to books and joyful reading environments in government schools, and how these experiences influence their engagement with reading and their developing relationship with books.
The study will focus on children who will be exposed to the programme for approximately six to eight months.
4. Key Research Questions
- How do children in government schools experience books and reading activities within the programme?
- What emotional or social responses do children express toward books and stories?
- How do children describe their relationship with books and reading?
- What early indicators of reading motivation or emerging reader identity can be observed?
- What programme practices or contextual factors appear to support or constrain children’s engagement with reading?
5. Study Context
The study will be conducted in locations where the reading programme has been implemented in government primary schools.
Geographic scope:
- Gujarat
- Rajasthan
- Maharashtra
Target participants:
- • Children in Classes 1–5 in government school
6. Methodological Approach
Applicants are invited to propose an appropriate research design to address the study objectives and research questions.
Methodologies should be developmentally appropriate for young children and may include qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approaches. Proposals should demonstrate how the study will capture children’s experiences with books and generate evidence on reading engagement, attitudes, and behaviours.
Applicants should clearly describe:
- Sampling strategy
- Data collection methods
- Analytical framework
- Integration of findings across methods
7. Deliverables
- Inception report outlining detailed research design and tools
- Data collection instruments and protocols
- Clean and documented datasets (where applicable)
- Final research report
- Practice-oriented brief for programme learning
Study duration will be from June 2026 to October 2026
8. Required Team Composition:
- Advanced research degree (Masters/ PhD)
- 5+ years of Experience in the Education Sector
- Prior experience of conducting research and evaluation studies in Education
- Strong quantitative (survey/quasi-experimental designs etc) and qualitative research methods and data analysis skills
- Belief in the power of storybooks for enhancing joy and lifelong learning
- Good understanding and knowledge about the Indian Education Sector
Team members should be proficient in the local language of all the three states, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
9. Confidentiality and Data Ownership:
All data collected under and provided by the selected agency for this assignment is the sole property of Pratham Books and may only be used for purposes outlined in this assignment. The data may not be shared with anyone unless explicitly approved in writing by Pratham Books. The data must be uploaded to a secure server designated by Pratham Books and the selected agency must adhere to all information security and confidentiality protocols provided by Pratham Books. All the data collected for this assignment must be handed over to Pratham Books before closure of the contract.
Any publications using the data must be explicitly approved in writing by Pratham Books prior to the publication and the organisation and any of its intellectual property should be acknowledged in the publications. Pratham Books is GDPR compliant as well as adheres to the in-country data protection laws. The agency will be required to comply with all applicable laws on data protection and privacy including but not limited to GDPR.
10. Proposal Submission Requirements
Applicants should submit:
- Technical proposal describing methodology, sampling, analysis plan, and timeline
- Team composition and CVs of key personnel
- Financial proposal
- Examples of similar research conducted
Please send your proposals to [email protected] Last date for submission is 8th May, 2026.
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