The Bloomsbury Handbook of Reading Perspectives and Practices

Description

Shortlisted for the UK Literacy Association's Academic Book Award 2021 The Bloomsbury Handbook of Reading Perspectives and Practices focuses on the experiences of reading from a young age to maturity and the different ways reading is encountered: in other words, the processes involved as well as the outcomes. The international group of experts, within both teaching and academia, focuses on reading in school: how is it taught? What is taught? How is it assessed? Controversial issues are explored: the acquisition of phonics; teaching the canon, including or ignoring digital texts; the advent of standards-based tests. The contributions also consider people's biographies of reading, their memories of reading in school and their current views on literature. Together, this well-edited volume provides a more complete view of reading than is currently on offer, exploring all aspects of what it means to be literate and how we define being literate.

Bethan Marshall is Senior Lecturer at King's College London, UK, where she is Director of MA English and Education and MA Creative Arts in the Classroom. Jacqueline Manuel is Professor of English Education and Program Director of the Master of Teaching (Secondary) at the University of Sydney, Australia. Donna L. Pasternak is Professor of English Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA. Jennifer Rowsell is Professor of Literacies and Social Innovation at the University of Bristol, UK.

This book provides a very interesting wide range of current thinking about reading across different contexts. It engages with ongoing issues and debates about reading, and threads running through the volume provide a cohesive and thought provoking narrative. With diverse voices and perspectives it is a valuable addition to the literature. * Lucy Taylor, Lecturer in Education, University of Leeds, UK *