Adolescent Dialogue with Writers as a Means of Reading Culture Formation

Abstract

The data of reading and monitoring undertaken in the framework of international studies – PIRLS and PISA, show that the reading rates of Russian school children who graduated from primary school, are very high, and are low for those who graduated from high (basic) school. This means that in the 5th grade of secondary school, the number of students capable and eager to read diminishes. The analysis of the current children’s reading model shows the predominance of an efferent direction of school children's motivation in the process of literary education. There is urgency in the problem of the so-called teenagers “screen reading”, the technique of which is mastered empirically by school children. The Internet and the mass media profoundly affect the formation of reading culture in modern teenagers, and increasingly widen the “student – hard copy” gap. To tackle the problem of motivation to reading, a number of preventive measures promoting changes in school reading models have been proposed:1. In accordance with the purpose, the nature and content of “reading culture” concept in psycho-pedagogicaland methodological literature have been defined;2. Psycho-pedagogical conditions of 4th – 7th grade school children’s reading culture formation have beensubstantiated;3. Effective forms and methods of teaching in order to form reading culture in 4th – 7th grades have beendefined;4. The effectiveness of adolescent dialogue with fiction writers in building reading culture of primary andsecondary school students has been experimentally tested and proved.

Keywords: dialogue, reading culture, work of fiction, reader’s interest, “screen reading”, children’s reading model, reading monitoring, creative activity

1.Introduction

The democratic society of the 21st century is interested in the formation of a personality which

skillfully masters the communication standards. The modern adolescent takes part in various

communicative relationships: “teacher-adolescent”, “adolescent-fiction writer”, “adolescent-peer” and

others (Ljvova, 2013). That is why the development and improvement of adolescent communication

abilities, his awareness of the significance of reading and literature study for his further development,

the formation of the desire for systematic reading as a means of world perception and his own

perception in this world, and his activity in the multi-fold dialogue with works of international, Russian

and national culture are important in current circumstances.

Unfortunately it’s a well-known fact that today’s adolescent reads less and less. It is explained by

the change of cultural paradigms connected with rapid development of the information technology. The

loss of school children’s reading interest as E.S. Romanicheva supposes in some degree is caused by

the implementation of current Federal state education standards. In this official document, primary

school reading is considered to work with information, and secondary school reading - comprehension.

However, in the middle and senior classes it is generally defined by a narrow pragmatic sense – but

paradoxically it is not connected with literature lessons (Romanicheva, 2015). Nobody pays attention

to the arrangement of school children’s fiction reading.

Therefore, the phenomenon of reading culture has special importance in the literary education of

adolescent readers, since the situation in the sphere of reading is getting tense: time allocated by a

modern person for reading is constantly reduced, the choices of readers are getting narrower, literary

taste is becoming more primitive, and so on.

The issues of reading culture formation, dialogue between the reader and the writer have always

been the subject of many specialists’, educationalists’, psychologists’, methodologists’, philologists’

study (M.M. Bakhtin, V.S. Bibler, Y.M. Lotman, M.S. Kagan, V.V. Gorshkova, E.A. Krjukova, S.Y.

Kurganov, G.M. Kuchinski, S.P. Lavlinski, J.P. Melentjeva, E.A. Ryabukhina and others).

According to J.P. Melentjeva “reading culture” includes not only the ability to be familiar with

information, but also to include concepts like “love of books”, “reading interest”, “reading

comprehension”, “creative reading”, “dialogue with authors and characters” etc. Thus, reading culture

is more internal, personal and even intimate (Melentjeva, 2010).

On the basis of the formation of reading culture there is the development of the reader’s activity:

from perception to interpretation. In the methodological science, the interpretative process is

considered as a key “mechanism of the development of readers” (Connery, 1988). That’s why the

in the process of literary “perception – understanding –

interpretation” determines the sociocultural and literary (the reading experience of a person)

development of an individual. The high level of reading culture is certainly characterized by “the

formation of creative perception, i.e. the ability to create new images, new reality” (Pertsovskaya,

2009).

The reading of a fictional text is based on aesthetic activities in the work of emotions, imagination

and thinking. This work leads to “recreating the image”, and comprehension of the author’s message

(Vojushina, & Kislinskaya, & Lebedeva, 2010). It’s not only “an activity when the identification of the

text is essential” (Belina, 2014), but also an individual's creative activity, where there is the dialogue

with the writer in its basis, and a reader is a conversationalist, character and critic. This dialogue is

impossible without a definite level of the reader’s literary development.

The dialogue nature of reading is significant according to many researchers. Every text being

written takes into consideration its perception by other people. Moreover in the process of the text

creation, the dialogue with an imaginary reader, and an author’s inner speech becomes simultaneous.

Therefore, the ability to initiate a dialogue is one of the key characteristics of cultivating reading

culture. The dialogue is especially important while reading a fictional text when the perceptive reader

should be a co-author of an artist, writer, and musician. “The reading of the fictional text becomes a co-

authorship arrangement” (Gumperz, 1982).

Thus, in the process of reading a text, the adolescent reader must be open to communicate with

the author, and must try to find new meanings in the text. However, such way of reading is possible

only when you master the text’s language, you have the ability to combine the elements of the language

so that they have meaning. In this case, the language is considered not only in the linguistic sense, but

in every unique form of art, in particular the fiction.

2.Problem of the research

To identify the effectiveness of the dialogue between an adolescent and a fiction writer for

reading culture formation.

3.Purpose of the study

To elaborate scientifically substantiated system for generating 4th -7th grade students’ reading

culture on the basis of their dialogues with fiction writers.

4.Research questions

1. The systematic theoretical material on researched problem;

2. The study of reading culture formation with the help of the dialogue between adolescent and

fiction writer;

3. Describing the essence and concept content of “reading culture” in psycho-pedagogical and

methodological literature;

4. The prove the effectiveness of the dialogue between pupils and fiction writer for reading

culture formation in primary and secondary school experimentally;

5. Defining effective forms and methods of teaching for reading culture formation in 4-7 grades.

5.Research methods

To prove the hypothesis, theoretical analysis of philosophic, psycho-pedagogical, methodological

literature, and the study of teaching experience and the organization of pedagogical experiments were

carried out. During the research there were methods such as; survey, observation, interview, testing,

and questionnaire of teachers and pupils. To identify the level of reading culture of adolescent readers

we have analyzed psychological, pedagogical, methodological literature, and analysis of questionnaire

were carried out.

6.The Results

400 schoolchildren of the 7th and 8th grades have taken part in this questionnaire. 80% pupils of

Elabuga secondary schools, 20% Elabuga district village schools.

Having analyzed the questionnaire we have come to the conclusion: 100 % of adolescent school children read (the 1st question), but generally books included in the school program (80 %). In spite of

the fact that the interest in books is obvious, children don’t know what to read. In contrast to primary

school children adolescents read “to broaden horizons” (39 %) and “for pleasure” (37, 5 %). It’s

interesting that 77% of respondents have their own home library (the 4th question) and they are even

going to supplement it with new books. However, there are some serious problems in this sphere that

most of the respondents while choosing books rely on the recommendations of their teacher (50 %) and

parents (21,25 %), but it should be noted that at this age the authority of peers increases – 16, 25% (the

3rd question). This fact wouldn’t be so sad if peers were not a bad influence on adolescents’ literary

taste because a lot of school children are guided by raffish statements and comments on book. Pupils of

this age category don’t have an understanding of the essence of literature as a subject and a book as a

work of fiction that’s why the adult’s authority in this period should increase not decline. One more

problem appears here – in Russia there is already a generation of people who don’t read and can’t give

a competent advice to an adolescent what book to read.

The results show for the age category of the 7-8th grades the authority of the teacher and parents is

gradually being lost, though in primary school the opinion of parents is important for 58% of pupils,

the one of the teacher - for 42 % of schoolchildren (this research was conducted earlier). The dialogue

between teachers and school children is not possible because the teacher is not able to show an exciting

world of fiction to a pupil.

Analyzing the results of the questionnaires we have noticed that reading has random

characteristics, it’s not a habit. A lot of adolescents don’t have text comprehension which is necessary

for the successful study in the 5-8th grades; pupils prefer reading classic texts and almost don’t

associate them with names and biographies of writers (70% of the respondents have just written the

titles of the books; 30 % remembered the authors of the texts); the role of the Internet has become more

significant in pupils’ life and reading in particular. It should be noted that 37% of teachers underline

that the adolescents show less interest in reading, the reason is “the absence of popularization of good

literature”. Interdisciplinary ties are lost (the Russian language, literature, foreign languages, history): a

lot of pupils make mistakes writing the names of the authors (Gogal) or the titles of the books

(donquixote). It’s interesting that answering the 2nd question in the section “Others” – 7,5 % of pupils

have written different genres and types of literature e.g.: “story”, “novel”, “prose”, “lyrics”, “poetry”,

though in the question the emphasis is put on the thematic aspect not on genre peculiarities.

7.Conclusions

The analysis of the results allowed to conclude that nowadays there are objective problems

that interfere with successful development of adolescent reading culture and teaching of literature at

school. Underestimation of reading opportunities while searching for value orientation of educational

processes, teachers’ low-level reading capabilities, the lack of attention to the strategies and

technologies of the development of school children’s literary competence, the absence of evaluation

system of pupils’ success as readers and other factors lead to “the crisis in education” (Bozhkova &

Frolova & Shabalinа, 2014). At the same time there are some positive features proving that it’s possible

to create pedagogical conditions in the frame of the educational process, where the reading culture can

become the driving force of school development.

The formation of adolescent reading culture by means of a dialogue in the process of the

studying school literature courses assumes the use of modern educational technology, active forms and

methods of education, the technology of problematic dialogue, play technologies, the project method,

case technologies, the development technology of critical thinking with the help of reading, writing and

so on (Verevkina, 2012).

Important psychological and pedagogical conditions for the effective formation of adolescent

reading culture are the following:

reading choice and quality; age and individual peculiarities of adolescents; traditions of family reading; the level of reader’s development of perception, imagination and interests of

adolescents;

use of various kinds of art at literature lessons.

E.S. Romanicheva points out that modern literary education reading and teaching can be successful if the course of literary reading in the secondary school is organized on the theoretical and

literary basis. It is important for the teacher:

- to be aware of reading planning, and maintain the reading interest of the pupils as primary

importance;

- to use the methods of reading attraction, offered by methodologists, librarians, literary and cultural

professionals;

- to gradually develop different forms of children creativity in the process of literary education.

It will be an important step by philologists to creating comfortable reading atmospheres by

transforming schools in the territory of “free reading” (Romanicheva, 2015).

Thus, the results of this research allow us to conclude that the organization of the dialogue

between adolescent reader and fiction writer if the mentioned conditions are met, contributes to the

formation of reading culture.

The given results were appropriated during the 6th International Makhmutov’s Readings

“Problem-based learning in the modern world”, EI KFU, April, 12-14, 2016 - Workshop for young

teachers on “Technology of Problem-based Dialogue as a Means of FSES Realization at Literature

Lessons”.

Acknowledgments

The work is performed according to the Russian Government Program of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University.

References

• Belina, E.V. (2014). The development of the concept “reading culture” in Russian culture and science.

• Person and Education, 3(40), 61-65.

• Bozhkova, G. & Frolova, G. & Shabalinа, N. (2014) The Educational Crisis as Reflected in Russian

• Literature in the 20th Century. Life Science Journal, 11(7s), 192-197.

• Connery, В. A. (1988). Group Work and Collaborative Writing. Teaching at Davis, 14(1), 2-4. Gumperz, J. (1982). Discourse Strategies Text. Cambridge University Press, 197-199.

• Ljvova, A.S. (2013). Dialogization of educational process - a means of teacher’s communication competence formation. Primary school, 6, 98-102.

• 422

• DOI: 10.15405/epsbs.2016.07.66 eISSN: 2357-1330 / Corresponding Author: Irina Verevkina Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of the conference

• Melentjeva, J.P. (2010). Reading: phenomenon, process, activity. History of World culture, 166–175. Pertsovskaya, R.F. (2009). The Development of Reading Culture as a Basis of Innovative Thinking Formation. Socio Information Technology, http://misit.ucoz.ru/load/15-‐1-‐0-‐41.

• Romanicheva, E.S. (2015). Reading in school literary education: negative shifts and possible ways to overcome them. Literature at school, 4, 27-29.

• Verevkina, I.N. (2012). Pedagogical technologies in modern literary education. Scientific Notes of Elabuga Institute of KFU, 20, 9-17.

• Vojushina, M.P. & Kislinskaya, S.A. & Lebedeva, E.V. (2010). Methods of teaching literature in primary school. Academia, 288.