Prue Goodwin

Literacy Unlimited
pruegoodwin@btinternet.com

Reading for pleasure

in primary classrooms
Friday 11 November 2011
 Reading for pleasure
• Being a reader is a pleasure
• The ‘simple’ idea of reading for pleasure
is actually very complex when put in the
educational context of primary schools
• Ask questions, challenge orthodoxies
and engage in professional debate – not
just today but back at school
• Where does pleasure fit into the
literacy curriculum?
We are teachers of reading

What do we want for each child?

What are we trying to achieve?
 Readers who are:
motivated-
confident-
independent-
enthusiastic-
:and who read for pleasure.

During their primary years learn to:

* fully understand what they read
* value their personal responses to books
and other texts
* select materials to suit their own purposes
* share their pleasure in reading with others.
 The pleasures of reading?
• Getting totally lost in a book
• Becoming absorbed in an unfolding
narrative – what happens?
• Being fascinated by information on a
subject that intrigues you
• Talking to other readers – informally or
in organised book groups
• Being inspired to respond emotionally
and intellectually to what has been read.
 … further, deeper, greater
pleasures of being a life-long
reader?
• Having a close relationship with certain
texts for life
• Turning to a page that you know will
provide you with excitement, challenge,
truth, comfort or delight
• Seeing literature as the means by which
we can understand and accept ourselves
and the rest of humanity.
 What made you into a reader?
Do you remember a significant moment
– a book, a person, a situation –
that helped to make you a reader?
 Organising reading in school

The teaching of reading

involves active intervention in the
understanding of how to read, about
reading and being a reader.

Developing individual readers

enabling children to become
independent as readers. It is usual for
each child to have a book often
referred to as a reading book.
 Teaching
How to read, about reading and about
being a reader should be taught through…

1. Reading aloud to children

2. Shared reading
3. Guided reading
4. Booktalk sessions
5. Creative interactions with texts
6. Individual reading
7. Organisation of independent reading.
Where does reading for pleasure
fit into the literacy curriculum?

Pleasure is primarily experienced

through being read to, followed by
reading to yourself by becoming
an independent reader.
Independent reading
When children discover
for themselves the joys of
being a reader.
First Steps - indicators for
reading development
• Role play reading
• Experimental reading
• Early reading
• Transitional reading
• Independent reading
• Advanced reading
 Pleasure from independent reading
• When children start to read, pleasure will
have been associated with success in their
reading performance, increasing skills and the
receipt of praise for reading aloud well.
• Pleasure from the performance not from
engagement with content.
• Resources used at early stages can lead
children to believe that choosing the longest,
least illustrated book is the way to
demonstrate competency and success.
 ‘Pivotal plateau’

• When children can use decoding strategies

without support
• Need for a great deal of practice at decoding
so that it becomes automatic
• Independent reading needs to be at a
consistent linguistic level
• Progress is made through breadth of
experience - books to broaden experience not
to ‘climb a ladder’.
 Newly independent readers
• Need to get totally lost in a book
• Become absorbed in an unfolding narrative –
what happens?
• Be fascinated by information on a subject
that intrigues them
• Talk to other readers – informally or in
organised book groups
• Be inspired to respond emotionally and
intellectually to what has been read.
READ FOR PLEASURE
 BUT ...
When is a reader independent?

What is an independent reader?

Independent of what or whom?

How do you know that a child has

become independent?

Is independence measured
by ‘reading book’?
 What do we mean by:
Reading book
Independent
Free reader
Colour coded levels
Reading age
Reading for pleasure
We share a vocabulary but do we
understand the same meanings?
What is the purpose of a reading book?
How does it help a child learn to read?

• Practise newly established skills

• Reinforce learning objectives from
taught reading sessions
• Gain confidence in growing ability, feel
successful and in control
• Develop stamina and preferences as a
reader
• To enjoy what they read.
 But …
• practising and establishing new found
skills requires time
• to thrive and gain confidence as readers
children need to feel successful
• to experience enjoyment they need to
get lost in the book
• to make progress they need to be able
to read their individual books with ease
• improved reading ability and enjoyment
go hand in hand.
 For young, newly independent readers to
make progress they need …
• a breadth of reading experience which
supports them by being easily within their
ability to read
• an element of choice and control over their
reading
• adults who validate them as part of the
class ‘community of readers’
• teachers who have shared expectations
and a positive vocabulary of reading
• continued quality teaching of how to read,
about reading and about being a reader.
 To teach reading for pleasure,
teachers must …
• Read aloud to children from books that engage,
excite, enlighten and enthuse them.

• Be readers themselves, model reading behaviours

and create communities of readers (UKLA TaRs 2007-
2010)

• Have a growing familiarity with children’s books

that will provide them with confidence to make
decisions about all the different texts they need
to teach literacy
• Make the use of local & school libraries part of the
school literacy policy.
 Becoming a reader is not about …

• … which colour, number or shelf your

book comes from
• … being able to answer twenty questions
at a literal level
• … having more words and fewer images in
the books you read
• … getting level 5.
NB Please don’t mention p----ts to me until after coffee.
 We cannot
make children
read for pleasure.

But we can provide the conditions

where readers can grow,
encouraged by our active support
and nourished by good books.
 Prue Goodwin
Literacy Unlimited

Workshop session

Reading for pleasure

in primary classrooms

Friday 11 November 2011

 Discussion point
In your school:
What happens with reading books
at the moment?
Are there any problems?

*Parental perceptions
*Reading becomes a competition
*Children unable to select
appropriately
 Readers need to be shown how to:

• Make choices about what they read

• Use reading for their own purposes
• Make decisions about their reading
• Develop personal preferences
• Share personal reading experiences
with other readers.
What children do independently
as readers is the true indicator
of their progress and ability.

Reading for pleasure increases

enthusiasm for reading. As with
any skill, the more we do it the
better we are at reading.
 ‘Pivotal plateau’

• When children can use decoding strategies

without support
• Need for a great deal of practice at decoding
so that it becomes automatic
• Independent reading needs to be at a
consistent linguistic level
• Progress is made through breadth of
experience - books to broaden experience not
to ‘climb a ladder’.
 Discussion points
Do children perceive progress in
reading as increasing the number
of pages, sentences and words?

How do children learn about

being readers?