Reading for Pleasure – A Silver Bullet or a Wild Goose Chase?

Abstract

Although we all inherently feel we understand the pleasure experienced when reading an engaging text, the application of these feelings to reading education can become conflated with subjectivity, socio-cultural partiality and personal bias, making the definition of ‘Reading for Pleasure’ highly subjective. This paper investigates the research around the phenomenon of ‘Reading for Pleasure’ and questions some of the assumptions made by that research particularly around the definition applied. It suggests that a more useful approach for educators would be to promote a commitment to reading in schools and, through research evidence suggests how this might be achieved.