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In educational contexts, reader has at least three different meanings. First, school curricula and national education systems prioritise the objective of teaching young children to read, after inducting them through storytelling, handling books and identifying letters and sounds. Young children’s reading is typically promoted as a fun activity, as well as an instrumental one. Campaigns with titles like Every Child a Reader – this example having a currency in both the United Kingdom and the United States – are directed at children and their parents, while older children are encouraged to maintain the reading habit by exploring new genres and authors and, in formal classes, by approaching texts critically. The recent boom in discursive book clubs, sometimes organised by libraries or adult education institutions, has provided new outlets for readers to exchange understandings and opinions about particular texts. Second, the term reader is used to describe an edited collection of writings considered important within a particular field of scholarship or essential to those undertaking a taught course, for which the reader may be a ‘set text’. Academic publishers’ catalogues may therefore include readers on areas ranging from astronomy to sociolinguistics to Victorian studies. Readers can also bring together, often in a single volume, essential extracts from such prolific writers as Karl Marx or Bertrand Russell. Third, reader is an academic title, most commonly found in the UK and countries influenced by the British higher education system. A reader is a senior post-holder, someone with higher status than a lecturer or senior lecturer, but positioned below the professorial rank. Promotion to reader may be a reward for excellence in research or teaching, or may be in recognition of additional responsibilities. After serving a period as reader, an academic may be well positioned for further career advancement by being appointed to a university chair.