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• Book-gifting programmes alone show no evidence in improving educational outcomes for children in care. • There is reason to believe that book-gifting programmes supplemented by an increased role for foster carers in reading with children in foster care might prove more effective. • The Reading Together programme, which combines book-gifting and an enhanced role for foster carers, showed no evidence of improving outcomes. • Aside from the impact of the Covid pandemic, issues of programme targeting, recruitment and fidelity are possible confounding factors. There now exists a considerable body of international evidence demonstrating the consistently poor educational outcomes faced by children in care. These effects emerge early and worsen as children grow older and last longer term into adulthood. One popular intervention aimed at addressing this has been the use of book-gifting. However, there is limited evidence that this, on its own, is effective in improving reading outcomes for children in care. Moreover, previous research suggests the need for book-gifting programmes to be enhanced through including a direct role for foster carers to support their children's reading when receiving the books. This article reports the main findings of a three-armed randomised controlled trial conducted in the UK across 22 local authorities and involving 266 children, that sought to evaluate the effectiveness of an enhanced book-gifting intervention, supplemented by a paired-reading component for foster carers to undertake with their children, known as Reading Together. The effects of the Reading Together intervention were measured on one primary outcome, children's levels of reading comprehension, and also included a number of secondary outcomes (reading accuracy, reading rate, receptive reading and attitudes towards reading). The trial found no evidence of the effectiveness of the programme, which is attributed to both the possible ineffectiveness of the programme itself and/or the confounding effects of Covid-19 national lockdowns and other restrictions that impacted on foster families during the period of the trial. However, the trial raises a number of important issues which are drawn out and discussed including: which children in foster care a programme like this should be targeted at; how to better ensure fidelity through an enhanced peer foster carer support role; the involvement of schools in interventions like this; and the need for more attention to be paid to the nature and quality of the carer/child relationship. Implications for future research are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]