The Complexities of Reading This lecture is the first of six of " The Mysteries of Reading and Writing". We tend to think t

The Complexities of Reading
    Good morning, everyone, welcome to my lecture. This is the first of six lectures which I’ve entitled " The Mysteries of Reading and Writing". Tonight I’d like to open the subject up by asking a series of questions and suggesting possible answers to some of them. The answers to other questions will emerge during the course of later lectures. Or at least that’s the plan.
    We take reading for granted. Once we’ve gained basic literacy, our competence increases with practice and we don’t think much about it until we attempt to help someone else to learn to read. Then we’re struck by what a long and difficult process learning to read is. And indeed how difficult it is to define. In France, in Burgundy, this summer I was struck by a sign directing people to a " Station de lecture du paysage"—A Post for Reading the Landscape.
    Reading is also a very complex and in some way mysterious business.
     (1)I’d like to tell a little story to illustrate this. Imagine two young Greek boys, playing in the attic of a house in rural Greece. They come across an old chest, and in it, a letter. They persuade each other that it includes instructions as to where to find valuables hidden during the Second World War.(2)One, let’s say Dimitris, has learnt to read but doesn’t know the local dialect in which the letter is written. The other, let’s say Gregoris, is illiterate, but is familiar with the local dialect. Dimitris gazes frustratedly at the words on the page while Gregoris asks impatiently what the letter says. Dimitris starts to "sound out" the words and Gregoris encourages him occasionally correcting a slight mispronunciation.(3 - 1)When Dimitris reaches the end of the letter, Gregoris is able to translate its contents into Modern Greek and they are then both aware of what the letter says.
    Now, who has "read" the letter? It can’t be Gregoris, as he is illiterate. Nor can it be Dimitris as he doesn’t know the local dialect.(3 - 2)So we have to conclude that the reading process has been shared and collaborative.
    Reading isn’t simply about " sounding out the letters". Nor can we do it without a certain oral competence in the language we’re reading.
     (4)Reading is specific to the human species, like speech, but reading doesn’t follow, or at least not directly, from innate capabilities which are activated simply by spending time with written material. With rare exceptions children learn to speak by being exposed to a linguistic environment and being encouraged into linguistic exchanges.(5)They learn to talk according to a developmental scheme, which is both genetically programmed and geared to the properties of each particular mother tongue.
     (6)But reading, as opposed to speaking, has to be learnt "formally". It has to be "taught" and assimilated, either in childhood or later. Without the pedagogy, children remain illiterate. It is a tragedy that there are some 774 million, roughly 20% of the global adult population, illiterate people in the world. I say "a tragedy" because I believe that reading greatly extends our understanding of the world and of ourselves.
     (7)That reading has to be taught formally has sometimes been denied, at least in fiction. Edgar Rice Burroughs, in Tarzan, King of the Jungle tells of the young savage child finding a reading primer in the cabin abandoned by an explorer—his father. He does his utmost to make sense of what he calls the " little insects" , the letters, recognising their recurrences and the combinations in which they appear. He teaches himself to read.
    In Marcel Pagnol’s La Gloire de mon pere(My Father’s Glory)Pagnol explains how he taught himself, aged just four, to read. He was often left by his mother at the back of the classroom when his mother went shopping. He’d play with a toy and watch his father admiringly. His father assumed that he was amusing himself quietly and paying no attention to his lessons.
     (8)Reading is the result of a patient apprenticeship guided by patient teachers. And it’s a complex process. It begins with learning how to make sense of words, then sentences, and finally what we might call the " global meaning" of a text.(9)The apprentice reader has to understand that a text is not simply sentences placed together. Rather there are " befores" and " afters" , and there are relations of cause and effect, or finality, between two events. Without necessarily learning formal grammar, the learner-reader of fiction has to understand that a character first introduced as Catherine, is the same character referred to later on by the pronoun "she" , or the character who reappears as a definite article, followed by a noun, qualified by adjectives, " the pretty little girl" : " Catherine" , "she" , and "the pretty little girl" are all the same "character". The more one thinks about reading, the more remarkable it is that it’s a skill that most of us are fortunate enough to have learnt. Because language is a tricky and slippery business.
    This evening we considered complexities of reading.(10)In my next lecture, I’d like to consider the reader, as opposed to reading. We’ll be exploring a range of images of readers and asking what they tell us about perceptions of reading. Thanks for your attention.