Setting the Scene on Children’s Reading

Abstract

I wanted to begin this book with comments about reading through the eyes of Dodi, Salman and Aliyah in the excerpts above. I did not want to start with an anecdote, or perhaps a quote from another author, as is common in academic books such as this one. The reason for this is that this book starts with children’s perspectives as a way to focus on the topics of reading practices, ethnicity and identity at school. In the context of this book, these comments indicate the distinctiveness of young children’s perspectives on the processes and practices of reading. Dodi’s comment tells us how children connect home and school spaces for learning, and the barriers in this process when no-one speaks English at home, and where formal literacy practices are not part of the home culture. From Aliyah’s and Salman’s comments we gain conflicting knowledge about what children make of the people they encounter in the books they use when learning to read at school: Salman is building his subjectivity from and through books in a reflective way, and Aliyah desires whiteness, often a norm in picture books. From what the children say, we learn that what is significant to them can be quite distinct and distant from concerns with ‘failure’ and attainment focused upon by policy makers and politicians, the media and ultimately practitioners and teachers in the area of children learning to read.

‘We want to learn to read with books with white people, girls, inside.’

(Aliyah, seven-year-old British Pakistani girl.)

‘None at home don’t read wit me. Cos they’s can’t read. Mum and auntie don’t speaks English.’

(Dodi, six-year-old Kurdish boy.)

‘It is important for me to see myself — people like me in books I read. It is important to have people who do stuff like you, like pray and stuff in books.’

(Salman, 11-year-old Bangladeshi boy.)