Moving from reader response to critical reading: developing 10–11‐year‐olds' ability as analytical readers of literary texts

This article presents aspects of a research study into how a group of ten‐ and eleven‐year‐old students (in 5th Grade in Sydney, Australia) were apprenticed to view a literary text from critical reading positions. These ways of reading were an alternative to their more typical reader response interpretations of texts. The article contrasts ‘non‐critical’ and ‘critical’ classroom talk through a close examination of transcript excerpts, and compares these kinds of talk as discrete ways of thinking and speaking. The article argues for a response‐analytical continuum which may support young readers in moving towards critical reading practices.