Professional Books: How Texts Teach What Readers Learn

“Strange as it may seem, the reading of stories makes skillful, powerful readers who come to understand not only the meaning but also the force of texts. It is a strong defense against being victimized by the reductive power of so-called ‘functional literacy’. It also makes writers.” – P. 40

“To learn to read a book, as distinct from simply recognizing the words on the page, a young reader has to become both the teller (picking up the author’s view and voice) and the told (the recipient of the story, the interpreter).” – p. 10

“…Experts tell us that the lucky children are those who are read to. If they know stories or rhymes by heart, they bring the words to the page when they read for themselves. They discover that you can play with language in both speech and writing, and they also learn not to expect the same sense from ‘Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John’ as from stories about a first day in school.” – p. 21

“The signs of genuine reading development are hard to detect as they appear, and bear little relation to what is measured by reading tests.” – p. 30

“… Lessons that are taught about reading rather than learned by reading. The result is a divergence in competence and understanding between young readers who have entered the reading network through the multiple meanings of polysemic texts and those who may have practiced only on the reductive feature of words written to be ‘sounded out’ or ‘recognized.’ Those who have had only the latter experience often feel that they are missing something when they read a text which they know means more than it says.” – p. 24