From Reading for Pleasure to the Desire to Read. Becoming a Good Reader

Abstract

This paper examines the role of the good reader, dealing with the related prospect and meaning in a Primary and Infant education School setting in Seville. This paper focuses on the study of an ethnographic research with a case study; it was developed during a period of thirteen months. By considering the new studies on Literacy, the aim was to analyse some particular ways in reading comprehension and practice in a specific school. This was performed through the examination of literacy customs out of the school environment, as well as its symbols and its narrative on the reading fact. The case study was carried out by means of fifteen semistructured interviews, the school internal documents were examined and some monitoring was performed outside the classroom in those school spaces closely related to reading. The conclusions from this study show, in the first place, that the role of the good reader entails a set of varied elements: the pleasure of reading, self-regulated reading, reading habits, and the desire to read. Likewise, and in the second place, the conclusions show that the good reader’s learning involves a process which leads the student from reading heteronomy to reading autonomy and which is built through school literacy practices and knowledge in order to consolidate the aforementioned dimensions.