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For the past 30 years researchers have been interested in children's responses to the books they read. Typically this interest is characterised by questions about what happens in the minds of young readers: How do they respond to fiction, poetry and more recently the visual images in picture books? Response is a general term that is used to describe a range of processes. For instance, responses to texts may be personal in that the individual derives pleasure and develops new understandings from the experiences. On the other hand a literary responses emphasises literary qualities and critical appreciation. Within the school context literature might also be included to serve a curricular function - as a springboard to learning about a subject such as history. (Protherough 1983) Trainees need to examine what is meant by the term and consider effective ways of developing and refining children's responses to the texts they read. In NLS rationale for KS1 and 2 identifies the following elements of response: to be interested in books, read with enjoyment and justify preferences; Develop powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness. This section looks at the elements of response and suggests ways of guiding trainees towards intervening in pupils' reading in thoughtful and imaginative ways.
What can literature do for the reader?
' Good books can do so much for children. At their best, they expand horizons and instil in children a sense of the wonderful complexity of life… No other pastime available to children is so conducive to empathy and the enlargement of human sympathies. No other pleasure can so richly furnish a child's mind with the symbols, patterns, depths and possibilities of civilisation.'
Michele Landsberg (1987) (p.34)
Reflecting on what literature can do for the reader D.W. Harding wrote: "Responding to a great work means becoming something different from your previous self." And Margaret Meek (1987) points out that texts 'can offer the reader the chance to discover fictions as the focus of contemplation of possibilities: what life might be like.' This reminds us that reading and responding to literature will always be more than the sum of the parts. While it is important that pupils can talk confidently about the point of view from which a story is told, or compare the structure of different stories, or understand how paragraphs and chapters are used (NLS 1998), this is to no avail if they are not moved, excited, delighted, challenged or changed by what they read.
In coming to understand what literature can do for the reader, trainees might be asked to revisit their reading histories (see online activities) and to identify a book that has had a significant impact on them - that has in some way led to personal growth. They can be invited to share these special books in small groups and then brainstorm a list or purposes and pleasures that can be derived from reading literature. They might than compare their ideas with those outlined by theorists such as Lukens or Nodelman (see below).
Literature brings together 'thinking' in both the cognitive and affective domains. So responses can be emotional and/or intellectual. Rebecca Lukens (1999) writes that literature elicits both pleasure and understanding and identifies a range of benefits to the reader. Literature, she writes, shows human motives; provides form for experience; reveals life's fragmentation; helps us focus on essentials; reveals the institutions of society; reveals nature as a force and provides vicarious experience. Nodelman's list of the pleasures of children's literature is extensive (see online activities) and includes items such as' the pleasure of gaining insight into history and culture', 'the pleasure of experiencing something new', or 'the pleasure of repeating a familiar and comfortable experience'. The importance of a personal response is acknowledged ….. and implied in the objects of the NLS framework where it details the need for children to relate reading to their own experiences (Y1 T1) discuss preferences (e.g. Y1 T2), justify preferences (Y3 T3) or articulate a personal response (Y6 T1). Though there are more frequent references to personal response at KS1 and lower KS2 this continues to be an essential starting point for talking about reading for children of all ages.
Having considered personal pleasures of reading, trainees might then investigate the pleasure that different children describe when talking about their reading. Francis Spufford (2002)The Child That Books Built and Daniel Pennac (1994) Reads Like a Novel provide illuminating accounts of the effect of childhood reading on the shaping of the individual. Trainees might read and talk about these books or discuss extracts from them.
 
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