In this paper, we analyse a group of 6 and 7 year olds' interactions during a literacy event. We explore the complexities of their meaning-making following a read aloud of Where the Wild Things Are (Sendak 1963). Our focus is on discourses of gender/sex/uality, a term that acknowledges the complex relationship between gender, sex and sexuality,…

All children are placemakers (Chawla, 1992). While we know that a child's sense of place is linked to a sense of belonging (Brillante & Mankiw, 2015), the implications of placemaking in the lived experiences of child readers, specifically, has not been widely explored. The primary purpose of this literature review is to aid reader response…

This study explored five adults' experiences of place within their middle childhood literacy life-worlds. Middle childhood, the stage of development in which children often acquire reading independence, is also characterized by significant increases in children's geographic accessibility and independence. The findings propose that in the literacy…

The paper presents findings from a reader response study conducted in February 2013 with 150 children aged 7-11 in which they discussed extracts and clips from Roald Dahl's "Matilda" (1988) and its cinematic adaptation (1996). Dahl and "Matilda" were chosen because they provoke emphatic responses from adults, often commenting…

This qualitative case study explores the nature of reading engagement, taking a reader response approach to analysing and discussing the experiences and perspectives of real readers. The paper reports a collaborative research project in which a group of five primary-age children and a group of five adults of different ages were asked to read and…

The purpose of this study was to examine how the social practices of African American families--with children in grades K-2--changed as a result of participating in a family literacy program utilizing African American children's literature. The families were exposed, through a series of workshops, to an abundance of children's literature…

Images of childhood are ideas and expectations of childhood and children, and are reflections of individual perception and cultural ideologies. In writing children's books, authors draw on their conscious and unconscious thoughts of childhood to create an implied reader. In this paper I investigate images of childhood through examination of the…

In 2007, the United Animal Nations (UAN) launched the Humane Education Ambassador Readers (HEAR), an innovation that focused on mitigation of animal suffering through education. In the HEAR program, adult volunteers read carefully selected story books to children in grades 3-6 in schools or other educational settings, and hold discussions with the…

Spearman's "Law of Diminishing Returns" states that the g saturation of a test is greater for individuals with lower, rather than higher, test scores, and that it decreases with age. A common methodological problem in testing Spearman's "Law of Diminishing Returns" with respect to ability differentiation is how to create the…

Describes a study at the Willings Learning Clinic that analyzed the responses of 39 male students, 66 female students, 44 adult males, and 51 adult females to literature. Five styles of responding to literature are discussed: the analyzer, the picture maker, the reflector, the elaborator, and the internalizer. (CR)

Discusses one seven-year-old girl's responses to three feminist folktales. Finds that for each tale, the girl was drawn to the female protagonist and named her as her favorite character, but the girl did not wish to emulate the female protagonists because of their unconventionality. Suggests that such tales may offer alternative models of female…

Analyzes, from a reader-response perspective, children's free responses to story characters in nontraditional roles. Investigates the relationship of gender for these responses. Finds that only 20-30 percent of the responses expressed opinions regarding appropriateness of nontraditional gender roles and that the most common response type was…

Analyzes the conversations and writings of 2 ethnically diverse populations of fifth-grade children (ages 10 and 11) in response to the powerful and difficult themes contained in two award-winning children's books. Discusses the child's voice; the teacher's role as cultural mediator; responses at the literal level; reading between the lines;…

This study assessed whether girls and boys write differently in their reader response journals for the classes of one sixth-grade teacher over 2 years. A literature-based reading program was used, and the students kept reader response journals. Journals from 9 girls and 11 boys from the first year and 8 girls and 8 boys from the second year were…