Re-reading the reading lesson: episodes in the history of reading pedagogy

Abstract

Reading pedagogy is constantly an object of discussion and debate in contemporary policy and practice but is rarely a matter for historical inquiry. This paper reports from a recent study of the history of reading pedagogy in Australia and beyond. It focuses on a recurring figure in the historical record—the ‘reading lesson’. Presented as a distinctive trope, the reading lesson is traced in its regularity in and through the discourse of reading pedagogy, starting in 1930s Australia and moving back into 19th-century Europe, and with specific reference to the UK and the USA. Teaching reading is expressly identified as a moral project—something that, it can be argued, clearly continues into the present.

Keywords:

• reading pedagogy
• reading lessons
• genealogy
• literacy

Notes

1. For an initial exploration of reading materials in educational history, see Patterson, Cormack, & Green (2012).

2. ARC Discovery project (2009–2010) ‘Teaching Reading in Australia: An Historical Investigation of Early Reading Pedagogy, the Figure of the Teacher, and Literacy Education’ (DP0987648). Chief investigators: Phillip Cormack, Bill Green & Annette Patterson.

3. It is worth noting here that this term was employed in the earlier curriculum document, The small schools curriculum, published in 1926 (‘The Reading Lesson’, pp. 37–39). In the section on Senior Classes, reference is made to the notion of ‘reading power’, which is directly linked to learning: ‘The development of such power is the only justification of the reading lesson in the senior classes’ (Education Department, Western Australia, 1926).

4. In this regard, it is useful to note the Bullock Report (1975), another key text in English curriculum history and indeed in educational history more generally. More explicit and extended treatment is to be found there of reading pedagogy; however, there is no space to address this here.

5. Francis Parker, called the ‘father of progressivism’ in the USA (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 1995, p. 75), was a strong promoter of child-centred pedagogy in the Quincy School District, Massachusetts, in the 1870s (Shannon, 2007, p. 12), and his work was widely read in Australia. Rogers (1985, p. 165) notes that Long in particular was inspired by Parker’s methods.

6. An extension lecture was one advertised and available to teachers not enrolled in a university course.

7. That this emphasis on speech with regard to reading pedagogy has a long history, extending at least back into the 19th century, is demonstrated by the Australian historian Alan Atkinson (2007), in his account of speech, schooling and the nation.

8. Due acknowledgement needs to be made here of the resurgence of a literary emphasis in primary school reading pedagogy in the 1960s and 70s, and subsequently, for instance in literature-based reading programmes and a renewed emphasis on children’s literature (for example, Holdaway, 1979; Meek et al., 1977).