Full Description
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 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.
Examining 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:
a shared concept of what it means to be a reader in the 21st century
considerable teacher and child knowledge of children's literature and other texts
pedagogic practices which acknowledge and develop diverse reader identities
spontaneous 'inside-text talk' on the part of all members
a shift in the focus of control and new social spaces that encourage choice and children's rights as readers
Written by experts in the literacy field and illustrated throughout with examples from the project schools, it is essential reading for all those concerned with improving young people's enjoyment of and attainment in reading.
Contents
1. Introduction : Setting the context 2. Reading for pleasure and reader engagement: Reviewing the research 3. The UKLA Projects: Teachers as Readers and Building Communities of Readers 4. Teachers' knowledge and use of children's literature 5. Enhancing teachers' knowledge of children's literature and other texts 6. Reading Teachers: Teachers who read and readers who teach 7. A Reading for Pleasure Pedagogy 8. Reader relationships within and beyond school 9. Influencing children's attitudes, motivation and achievements as readers 10. Conclusion: Building communities of engaged readers
