As can be seen from the table, specific reading strategies were clearly identifiable at each
developmental level. Each kind of reading satisfaction or source of interest was found to
be associated with particular strategies used by all students reading at that level.
Level 1:
unreflective interest in actionStudents reading at this level enjoy books with cut-and-dried plots and characters
tailored to fit them. An interest in characters goes no further than concern for the
success or failure of the actions they are engaged in. Characters are enjoyed as
stereotypes, sympathised with if they are ‘goodies’ and not sympathised with if they are
‘baddies’. (‘You take sides with the good guy and hope he wins.’)
Hermeneutic puzzles and subtleties of motivation perplex and bore such readers rather
than arouse their curiosities. Their attention is fragile and requires the constant
excitement of dramatic action for its maintenance. The characteristic reading strategies
of this level are forming simple mental images and anticipating what might happen next
in the short term. The mental images are mainly visualisations of place and character,
together with stereotypic feelings about the characters and events, with both the
pictorial and affective elements influenced substantially by film and television. In
generating expectations about what might happen ahead in a text, action-level readers
are actively interested in the outcomes of events beyond the present moment but not in
the long-term implications or significances of them. That a character succeeds or fails is
the object of concern, not why s/he succeeds or fails, nor what view of the world his or
her success or failure might imply.
Because of their lack of experience and satisfaction in the reading of fiction, students
at this level have limited understanding of literary conventions. For example, a 16-year-
old girl shows how her restricted literary repertoire led to her failure to understand
Robert Cormier’s novel, The Chocolate War.
In The Chocolate War it was wrong that Jerry got bashed up. It should have ended
in good feelings, not bad. Brother Leon and all the boys should visit Jerry in
hospital and be sorry for all they’ve done, and look after him and forgive and forget
so that life will be better after.Her narrow literary repertoire caused her to read the novel according to her internalised
conventions of the ‘forgive-and-forget-and-live-happily-ever-after’ novel. To her this was
the only kind of novel.
Associated with the appeal to these students of fiction that formulates their fantasies
or portrays the world as they would like it to be, is their dismissive evaluation of most of
APPLICATIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 579