Developing Readers in the Middle Years

Are there developmental stages in reading response? Can these be promoted or accelerated by classroom experience? The debate about standards in reading has largely ignored such questions and focused on the methods used to introduce children to print in the early years of school. Less attention has been given to ways of nurturing the habit once the first stages are past. This text explores how assumptions about what is pleasurable in reading set an agenda for the middle years of school which ignores crucial differences in children's reading habits, particularly those related to gender. The author argues that the more advanced reading skills of analysis, evaluation and critical response can be introduced to children at this stage but that they require the support of a classroom context that encourages co-operation and which builds on shared habits of reading.