Reaction Paper: Non-Reader
The idea about getting experience of interactions with people via reading is nothing new, and it is often repeated in different appeals about importance of reading. However, the provided materials present far more complex picture of how this experience is gained, especially in novice readers, and what precautions should be taken to provide them with appropriate reading experiences.
Two main components of understanding 'what the book says' are mind-reading and empathy (Nikolajeva, 77). According to Nikolajeva, mind-reading is getting (or creating for oneself) 'mental representation, representation of a character's interiority: thoughts, feelings, perceptions, beliefs, opinions, assumptions and intentions' by means of interpreting the indirect details or direct descriptions provided by writers (80). Empathy is ability to understand other people's emotions without experiencing them (81). What is the most striking idea to me is that, first, human brain reacts to fictitious emotions (stimuli) like it would react to real ones (83). Second, the assumption that we recognize and accept only familiar emotions is partially false. As current research shows, unfamiliar or partially familiar emotional states only stir human curiosity and desire to understand them (83). This is one of the benefits of reading: opportunity to live through and engage with various emotions without need to get into real-life situations that might cause these emotions, like death of a loved one or some huge embarrassment. This valuable experience in reading mind and /or empathy is gained gradually like any other skill, and age appropriate books are very helpful in that.
Yet here one precaution is necessary. Teachers sometimes encourage kids to identify with fictional characters, which is hardly useful for developing empathy and ability to understand other people as separate individuals, not like our alter egos or copies. Immersive identification with characters in books means that novice readers ascribe to these characters their own limited human experience do not learn anything new (84-85). It is like shutting away the part of the image we do not like and looking only at the portion we enjoy. So instead of urging kids to identify it is better to help them see these characters as 'others' who are different but also have ideas, thoughts and emotions that can be explored.
The book Oh, How I Wished I Could Read by J. Gile (1995) is an interesting example of kids' book from the point of view of possible interpretation and self-identification with the boy described. The multimedia narration is engaging with novice readers in two ways: emotional and intellectual. Emotional is immediate reactions to pictures (as eyes are hard-wired to brain and so the info goes faster), and intellectual takes some time longer. The plot of the book is valuable in that it offers (in my point of view) two modes of perception for younger and older children. Young children who cannot read and engage with pictures while a parents reads aloud can identify with a boy and understand his non-reader experience as their own. They …
