READER RESPONSE

The reading act is an event involving a particular individual and a particular text, happening at a particular time, under particular circumstances.

Louise Rosenblatt (1985)

Reader response stresses the importance of the reader’s role in the construction of meaning. Readers actively create their own meaning from texts and express their individual responses and understandings. When responding, students are encouraged to reflect on what they bring to the text as readers. This includes experiences, knowledge, emotions and concerns. It is through the transaction between the reader and the text that meaning is made.


The response process is the interface between reader, text and context. Reader response focuses on the importance of talk as a means of clarifying the reader’s initial ideas, and the interpretation of texts as a measured response that draws on both the world of the reader and the world of the text.

READER RESPONSE THEORY

View this short video for an overview of Reader Response Theory.

In the videos below, watch reader response in action as students respond to texts during read alouds, and talk their way to meaning.

Click here to view the video.

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LITERACY TODAY IS UNDERSTANDING THE WORD AND THE WORLD.

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