Readers in the round: children's holistic engagements with texts

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate the relationship between reading and writing for pleasure. Children read a wide range of media as well as books for pleasure and develop strong affective bonds with the artefacts of literacy they encounter. What remains less well understood is the relationship between the array of texts children engage with and the texts they subsequently create. A focus on “Reading for Pleasure” has enabled us to think anew about the relationships between the texts children read, play and engage with and those they make, play and tell. Data from two doctoral research projects illuminate the ways children draw on cultural resources, moving skilfully across mode, medium and form. In doing so, they learn language conventions which enable them to engage in schooled literacies and learn to use conventional language techniques for their own purposes to transform and re‐imagine texts. Children's identities as readers, writers and storytellers are constructed holistically, and we explore the role of pleasure in reading and meaning making. In conclusion, we consider the potential for positioning reading for pleasure not in isolation, but as a strand in the complex fabric of literacy that needs to be nurtured in children.

Individual reading styles: a narrative approach to understanding reading behaviour

“…There is discussion in the literature on reading for pleasure that covers similar ground to the idea of reading being an immersive experience. Parry and Taylor (2018) use the example of the character Meggie in Inkspell (Funke 2005) to illustrate the fact that meaning resides not with the author alone, but in the reader's experience of a text. The immersive nature of reading illustrated in the narratives presented here connects directly to the engagement and motivation of readers (Parry and Taylor 2018).…”

“…Parry and Taylor (2018) use the example of the character Meggie in Inkspell (Funke 2005) to illustrate the fact that meaning resides not with the author alone, but in the reader's experience of a text. The immersive nature of reading illustrated in the narratives presented here connects directly to the engagement and motivation of readers (Parry and Taylor 2018). Many countries are experiencing decreases in rates of reading for pleasure (Garces-Bacsal et al 2018;McNaughton 2020) and connections have been made to the increasingly utilitarian expectations of reading in schools as a result of standards-based assessment measures.…”

We read, we write: reconsidering reading–writing relationships in primary school children

“…This is true whether or not the language and style of the encountered texts is literary, and whether the reading has occurred in traditional or newer forms. Children's engagement with texts as readers and as writers is holistic (Parry and Taylor, 2018) in the sense that their reading choices inform their writing in a range of different ways, including form, content, style and language. Children's responses to encountered texts are reflected in their creation of texts, and they make use of their experience with texts to redesign and explore the boundaries of texts in imaginative ways.…”

Reading for pleasure: exploring reading culture in an Australian early years classroom

“…Research exploring factors contributing to students' enjoyment of reading indicates that environments, texts and teachers' talk all have major influences on student attitudes. Material qualities of reading spaces were found to determine the nature of the reading experiences, where physical comfort (Kuzmičová et al, 2018) and access to quality, varied texts was foundational (Parry and Taylor, 2018). Furthermore, a teacher's discursive practices with reading, modelling of genuine pleasure when reading (Cremin, 2014b) and personal reading habits (Commeyras, 2003;Cremin et al, 2008a) are integral in establishing a positive classroom reading culture.…”