Social Reading/
Social Reading seems at first glance to be an oxymoron, or perhaps even a paradox! Because what, if any thing, connects the solitary reader absorbed in his or her private reading experience with the shared nature of human interactions? Nothing, you might think; reading is by definition individual, social interactions shared.
This seems indeed to be the case in most instances of Social Reading, whether in the case of traditional reading groups or facilitated by new social media; first you read, then you share. But what if the very act of reading were social? In the ”Get Into Reading” model, developed by The Reader Organisation, UK, reading takes place in a group setting where entire books are read aloud together and reflected upon creating immediate shared experiences and extensive social interactions. This form of “shared reading” not only connects the individual and shared aspects of reading; it creates social cohesion allowing social reading to mean reading with a social purpose.
Join Jane Davis, founder and director of The Reader Organisation, UK, and Mette Steenberg from Læseforeningen, DK, for a discussion of the prospects of “shared reading” and let us together explore the opportunities that this reading practice facilitates for readers and librarians alike.
Take a look at the related theme/study-tour:
session/study-tour-shared-reading-cognitive-tool
Mette Steenberg
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COMMENTS/
From Lise Kloster I received this summary from the workshop. Thank you, Lise:-)
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What is social Reading? maybe it whoul be better to just Call it: how we can read together.
Methode: Diskussion and experience at the same time. The reflection togehteher while we read out loud. A shared Reading experience as the basis of the reflection. The focus is on the literature and the shared experience. The therapy, social integration and the apporved reading skills are "just" lovely sideeffect, not the focus.
the readinggroups are lead by educated Reading groups leaders.
Jane Davis tells us about the reader organisation in England. jane started the organisation to share the great experience of literature. Now 50 people work in the organisation.
"literature is a life saving experience, that everybody should have the changes to have. We want a reading revolution!"
Jane prensent us to a readinggroup. All the readers in the group have a hard life, but they all been helped by Reading literature together.
A lot of the people in the social Reading groups have failed badly in School. It takes time to make the people in the group feel secure in the group and it Can be difficult even to find members who Will join the readinggroup. It is always slow to start with.
But Jane again and again have experienced that people over time join in, Open up and the results are amazing. And Mette have the same experience form the work in læseforeningen in Denmark.
Literature seem to be a great place to find words for your own feelings and found out about others feelings and thoughts.
Afterward Jane read out the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost and made us talk about it As if we were all in a readinggroup.
If you still need arguments why the social Reading should NOT be The road Not Taken for the library, please notice that In england the reader organisation make new library users and make the effect of reading obvious.
The next library take the road through a reading revolution!
Mette Steenberg's article “Shared reading”:
old technology in the era of new digital media is published in the Scandinavian Library Magazine: http://splq.info/issues/vol44_3/03.htm