Read On: Using Fiction in the Primary School

by Stuart Marriott

Fiction has immense benefits for children. It has powerful and positive effects on children’s language development, and also provides them with access to a limitless world of artistry and imagination and to vicarious experience, which is both extensive and complex. The purpose of this book is to provide both a rationale and a strategy for the use of fiction in primary schools. A policy framework for fiction is described, and ways in which stories can be appropriately used in teaching and learning in the classroom are proposed. A range of practical ideas for classroom work with specific novels and stories is suggested. The National Curriculum requires that children “develop as enthusiastic, independent and reflective readers.” This book will prove a valuable resource for that purpose.

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 1995