Researching the reading lesson

1. Historical aspects of reading pedagogy in Australia Researching the reading lesson

3. Teaching reading in Australia: An historical investigation of early reading pedagogy, the figure of the teacher and literacy education • What are the historical (dis)continuities in the ideals and practices associated with the teacher of beginning reading from the mid-19th century to the present? • How has the teacher-pupil-text relationship in beginning reading pedagogy been configured in different periods and places? • What can be learned from the history of debates about the teaching of reading that can inform teacher preparation and professional learning?

4. Associated papers • Annette Patterson, Phil Cormack, and Bill Green (2010, under review) Reading primers and reading instruction: An historical perspective. submitted to Paedagogica Historica. • Phil Cormack (2011, in press) Reading Pedagogy, ‘Evidence’ and Education Policy: Learning from History? Australian Education Researcher.

5. The reading lesson • a primal scene of schooling • shaped by the kinds of materials available for reading, and the pedagogical techniques deployed to shape young readers • the material and discursive forces at work that foreground approaches or technologies at different times

6. The papers • Re-reading ‘the reading lesson’: Introduction and overview – Bill Green • From rhetoric to ethics: The uses of instructional materials in the teaching of reading – Annette Patterson • A genealogy of teaching practices in the reading lesson – Phil Cormack