Building Communities of Engaged Readers: Reading for pleasure

Abstract

Reading for pleasure urgently requires a higher profile to raise attainment and increase children’s engagement as self-motivated and socially interactive readers. Building Communities of Engaged Readers: Reading for Pleasure provides an inspiring and accessible account of a two phase UKLA collaborative research and development project that achieved these goals. \n \nUniquely, the book highlights the concept of ‘Reading Teachers’ who are not only knowledgeable about texts for children, but are aware of their own reading identities and prepared to share their enthusiasm and understanding of what being a reader means. Sharing the processes of reading with young readers is an innovative approach to developing new generations of readers. \n \nExamining the interplay between the ‘will and the skill’ to read, the book distinctively details a reading for pleasure pedagogy and demonstrates that reader engagement is strongly influenced by relationships between children, teachers, families and communities. Importantly it provides compelling evidence that reciprocal reading communities in school encompass: \n•\ta shared concept of what it means to be a reader in the 21st century \n•\tconsiderable teacher and child knowledge of children’s literature and other texts \n•\tpedagogic practices which acknowledge and develop diverse reader identities \n•\tspontaneous ‘inside-text talk’ on the part of all members \n•\ta shift in the focus of control and new social spaces that encourage choice and children’s rights as readers \n \n \nRevealing the findings of the OU and UKLAs high profile Teachers as Readers study, the book also offers a wealth of strategies for developing communities of readers in and beyond the classroom. It explores how rich reader relationships can be built, and how reading communities who choose to read for pleasure can be fostered. \nKey findings explored include the significance of : \n•\tTeachers’ knowledge of children’s literature and other texts \n•\tTeachers’ knowledge of children as readers, their practices and preferences \n•\tA reading for pleasure pedagogy \n•\tBeing a Reading Teacher- a teacher who reads and a reader who teachers \n•\tBuilding reciprocal and interactive communities of readers