Reading Circles for Adult Emergent Readers, Insights in Adult Learning by Sam Duncan Author: Sam Duncan Title: Reading for Pleasure and Reading Circles for Adult Emergent Readers, Insights in Adult Learning Cost: £7.95 65 Pages ISBN: 978-1-86201-823-5
Reviewed by Vicky Duckworth
Vicky Duckworth is a senior lecturer and MA lead in Further Education and Training and Schools' University Lead at Edge Hill University, UK. She has published on a range of issues in the field of literacy, critical and emancipatory approaches to education, social justice, widening participation, inclusion and community engagement.
Reading can have an intense effect on self-esteem, confidence and making sense of the world around us. This short volume is an engaging and timely book which encourages us to explore how rewarding reading is and how it provides opportunities for readers to make meaningful connections between literacy and literature.
Through the use of insightful case studies we are taken into the worlds of members of reading circles. For example, we explore Anna's reading journey. After leaving school without qualifications and working mainly in shops, now a full-time mum of two young children, she has joined a reading circle. This circle has developed Anna's confidence, fuelled her imagination and extended her social network where words on a page, spoken words and friendships are threaded together. The case study really illuminates how reading and reading in conjunction with other people can provide a space for people to share ideas and have fun while doing it.
Following on from Sam's previous work, Reading Circles, Novels and Adult Reading Development (2012), this book is more of focussed on "emergent readers". This title also focuses in greater detail on what "reading for pleasure” means beyond the context of reading circles, and how it relates to reading development.
Sam takes what could be a complex topic and makes it accessible and rich not only in terms of reading but also in terms of sharing creativity, world pictures and diverse journeys. Although not drawn upon explicitly in the text, I was reminded of Paulo Freire's (2006) “culture circles” and how reading and exploring the concepts and ideas through dialogic engagement can generate consciousness-raising, liberation, empowerment and transformation (Duckworth, 2014) and in doing so the subject 'has the capacity to adapt oneself to reality plus the critical capacity to make choices and transform [their] reality' (Freire, 2002, p. 4).
The book is well-written, engaging and motivational. So much so, that after reading it I feel enthused to start a reading circle and to set up my own reading group. Any takers …..
References Duncan, Sam (2012), Reading Circles, Novels and Adult Reading Development. London: Bloomsbury Freire, P. (2002) Education for critical consciousness. New York: Continuum Freire, P. (2006) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary edition. New York: Continuum Duckworth, V. (2014) Literacy and transformation, in Duckworth, V. and Ade-Ojo, G.(eds.) (forthcoming). Landscapes of Specific Literacies in Contemporary Society: Exploring a social model of literacy. London: Routledge Research in Education
37
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47