Table Of ContentBECOMING A READING
TEACHER
This book encourages readers to think about reading not only as an encounter
with written language, but as a lifelong habit of engagement with ideas. We
look at reading in four different ways: as linguistic process, personal experi-
ence, collective experience and as classroom practice. We think about how
reading influences a life, how it changes over time, how we might return at
different stages of life to the same reading, how we might respond differently
to ideas read in an L1 and L2. There are 44 teaching activities, all founded on
research that explores the nature, value and impact of reading as an authentic
activity rather than for language or study purposes alone. We consider what
this means for schools and classrooms, and for different kinds of learners. The
final part of the book provides practical stepping stones for the teacher to
become a researcher of their own classes and learners. The four parts of the
book offer a virtuous join between reading, teaching and researching. It will
be useful for any teacher or reader who wishes to refresh their view of how
reading fits in to the development of language and the development of a read-
ing life.
Jane Spiro is Professor of Education and TESOL at Oxford Brookes Uni-
versity, National Teaching Fellow and Research Lead for Applied Linguis-
tics. Her book Changing Methodologies in TESOL (Edinburgh University
Press, 2013) forms the core of the MA in TESOL in the School of Edu-
cation. She has run programmes for teachers of language and literature
worldwide, including Hungary, Poland, Mexico, Kenya and India. Her
doctorate was on the role of creativity in language education (Bath Uni-
versity 2008). She is a published poet and novelist: her resources for the
teaching of language through creative writing include Storybuilding (2007)
and Creative Poetry Writing (2004), with Oxford University Press. She was
co-editor of the journal Reading in a Foreign Language in its first incarnation in
the UK. Her most recent publication is Crossing Borders in University Learning
and Teaching (Routledge, 2022).
Amos Paran is Professor of TESOL at the IoE, UCL’s Faculty of Edu-
cation and Society. His background is in teaching EFL in secondary schools
in Israel, and he has worked and taught internationally, including visiting
appointments in Chile, Germany and Hungary. He has also written EFL
coursebooks including supplementary skills books for reading comprehen-
sion, and his doctoral work looked at processing words and reading times in
L1 and L2. His current areas of interest are using literature in EFL, reading in
EFL and distance education, and he has published extensively in these areas,
including co-editing Testing the Untestable in Language Education (with Lies
Sercu, Multilingual Matters, 2010) and co-authoring the Teachers’ Handbook
Literature (with Pauline Robinson, OUP, 2016). He is a tutor on the free
MOOC, Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task-Based Approach. He is the book
review editor of the ELT Journal and co-convenor of the AILA Research
Network, Literature in Language Learning and Teaching (LiLLT).
Research and Resources in Language Teaching
Series Editors: Anne Burns, University of New South Wales,
Australia and Jill Hadfield, Unitec Institute of Technology,
New Zealand
Research and Resources in Language Teaching is a groundbreaking
series that aims to integrate the latest research in language teaching and learn-
ing with innovative classroom practice. Books in the series offer accessible
accounts of current research on a particular topic, linked to a wide range of
practical and immediately usable classroom activities.
Communicating Identities
Gary Barkhuizen and Pat Strauss
Extensive Reading
The Role of Motivation
Sue Leather and Jez Uden
Digital Literacies 2nd edition
Mark Pegrum, Nicky Hockly and Gavin Dudeney
Sustaining Action Research
A Practical Guide for Institutional Engagement
Anne Burns, Emily Edwards and Neville John Ellis
Initial Language Teacher Education
Gabriel Diaz Maggioli
Critical Thinking
Gregory Hadley and Andrew Boon
Becoming a Reading Teacher
Connecting Research and Practice
Jane Spiro and Amos Paran
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Research-and-Resources-in-Language-Teaching/book-series/PEARRLT
BECOMING A READING
TEACHER
Connecting Research and Practice
Jane Spiro and Amos Paran
Cover image: ©fcscafeine at Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Jane Spiro and Amos Paran
The right of Jane Spiro and Amos Paran to be identified as authors of
this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Spiro, Jane, author. | Paran, Amos, author.
Title: Becoming a reading teacher : connecting research and practice /
Jane Spiro, Amos Paran.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Series: Research
and resources in language teaching | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022032259 (print) |
LCCN 2022032260 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032405261 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780367473020 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003041382 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Reading teachers--Training of. | Reading.
Classification: LCC LB2844.1.R4 S75 2023 (print) |
LCC LB2844.1.R4 (ebook) | DDC 428.4071--dc23/eng/20220707
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022032259
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022032260
ISBN: 9781032405261 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780367473020 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003041382 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003041382
Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Dedicated to my students over four decades who
have shared their reading lives and enthusiasms
and who have been my best teachers.
Jane
In my pre-service education and in my early years of
teaching I was incredibly fortunate to be mentored
and guided by a number of teachers and teacher
educators without whom I would not have become
the teacher that I am: Dvora Ben-Meir, Tami Ronen,
the late Sheila Been and Jane Vaknin. I would like to
dedicate this book to them, with infinite gratitude.
Amos
CONTENTS
List of tables xiv
List of abbreviations xv
Series editor’s preface xvi
Introduction 1
Becoming a reading teacher 1
Why should a teacher of reading engage with research? 2
Ten questions about reading 3
What this book is not 4
What this book is 5
1 From research to implications 6
A: Framing reading as linguistic process 7
Introduction 7
Question 1: What are we doing when we read? 7
Question 2: What are the different reasons and ways
people read? 11
Question 3: What knowledge do we bring to our
reading? 14
Question 4: What is the relationship between L1 and L2
reading? 16
