This article reports on small-scale research exploring the views of learning support assistants (LSAs) about facilitators and barriersto effective practice. A focus group was conveyed involving all the LSAs working in one mainstream primary school in the north-west of England and thematic analysis was used to interrogate the resultant dataset. The Wider Pedagogical Role (WPR) model (Webster et al., 2011) was used as a deductive framework to conceptualise these findings under the headings of practice, deployment, conditions of employment, preparedness and characteristics. Findings revealed that LSAs could readily identify current facilitators and barriers under each of the five components, highlighting the usefulness of the WPR model. Possibilities for future research, including the refinement and further development of the WPR, are briefly discussed.

Research suggests that reading engagement and motivation are strong predictors of reading performance. Reading motivation may decline as students approach adolescence, resulting in less time spent with text. To date, there has been no research on how practitioners might directly support students to address affective factors in reading. In this exploratory case study, three disengaged, Year 8 readers received five sessions of an affective intervention aimed at helping them explore and challenge their own ambivalence towards reading. Quantitative and qualitative data from pre-, post-and three-month follow-up indicated a range of benefits in relation to reading engagement and motivation, including improved self-efficacy, increased participation and the usefulness of talking about affective factors in reading. Findings are further examined and implications for practitioners are discussed.

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