How Can you Go on a Journey When There is no Path? The Case for Whole Books and Teacher-led Choice

I made my husband watch Bridgerton recently. It’s not his genre, let’s be clear. There were no spaceships and no apocalyptic warnings.  There were no elves and portals to other worlds. However, it was set in the past and history is something he can get hold of and that was enough. He watched the first episode with a sniff of snobbery and scepticism. Bridgerton, for those of you not familiar with the Netflix boxset, is set in an alternative regency London where society demands debutantes to be presented with the hope of securing their future by finding a husband. It’s not Jane Austen, but it’s not Gossip Girl (which many have likened it to) either. Like all binge-worthy shows, it was all too easy after the first episode to let it roll it on and this indeed is the modern acid-test for knowing you know you are hooked. The advantage of you both watching the same programme at home is that you can talk about it together. We discussed how the show’s imagined timeline compared with actual regency England; the brilliance of casting such a diverse group of actors to create such believable characters; the music used in helping to set a scene and most importantly - would there be a season 2?!

The benefit of someone making a viewing or reading choice for you is that is opens doors that may have otherwise stayed closed. We are all more than capable of making choices for ourselves but often when looking for a new book, we stick close a familiar genre – we know what we like, and we like what we know! But occasionally a nook or cranny – such as interest in history here - can give us a way through to another world and this can be enriching and empowering to us as readers. This is another reason why school librarians are so precious; their knowledge of books and what will hook a reader in who has liked one book is valuable. 

Of course, you have the right to pick a book up and put it down. The right to watch one episode and turn over, the right to make a choice early on about whether ‘this is for you’ (see No. 3 Rights of a Reader by Daniel Pennac) but we know that the more we watch or read, the more informed our choice will be to turn off and the more reason we will have to make an opinion. This is all part of becoming a ‘critical reader’. We define a critical reader as someone who can see within and beyond the text. The ability to infer, compare and digest the meaning beyond the individual words.  

What reading ‘diet’ then does someone need to help them become a critical reader? What experiences and what books would we recommend? It differs for each individual of course, and one reading path for one person can be very different to another but we know that breadth anda range of different texts is important. The power of a great narrative can be applied to many settings and characters but it’s the settings and characters that make one story distinct from another. This makes for a great comprehension activity that goes beyond the extract though. How many stories do you know where a character undergoes a transformation? Or maybe has a plot with a rags to riches theme? 

I read a new book the other day. I got to page 53 and then had to read it all again. I was then able to read on. It’s quite rare that I don’t have to do that. It takes a while for me to ‘get into’ the text; I’m grappling with acclimatisation of a new setting and getting to know new characters. Once I’m there and I’ve reread that first bit I can normally then read on successfully – I was taught to do that by a great teacher at secondary school. But I used to give up at that point. This is why extracts can be hard going as we constantly having to switch on and switch off and re-acclimatise. They might well be used to test children’s reading, but they are not the best tool to teach children’s reading.

We know that we need tricks and strategies to help children become familiar with new reading material. Doing some vocabulary work in advance of any reading session, such as the example here using our Literary Leaf for The Explorer by Katherine Rundell (thank you for sharing your outcomes Whiston Willis Primary Academy!) will help when children tackling an unfamiliar piece. Words explored as a class can be a 'way in’ to the book. I like to think of it as long journey to a strange place but you have friends to stay with on the way!

Our Literary Leaves use whole books, rather than extracts to pull out whole themes but also to give children the breadth and range of a genre they might not have picked up independently within the safety- net of a focused reading experience. True comprehension goes beyond the extract; it goes into the bookshop or the library and makes a new choice – based on experience. 

Lynn Sear