Exploding the Reading: Building a World of Responses from One Small Story

by David Booth

Based on learning generated by a 200-year-old folktale used by thirty teachers and a thousand kids, Exploding the Reading explores how to “dig deep” inside the story and encourages teachers to incorporate a variety of response modes. David Booth demonstrates that when students share their personal interpretations with others, they alter, grow, reframe, and extend their understanding of the text. This practical book also shows teachers how to help students discover the world outside the the different backgrounds, connections, places, values, and perceptions students bring to their reading. Student samples and actual transcripts present students experiencing the featured story through poems, visuals, blogs, art, conversation, and more.

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2014

About the author

David Wallace Booth is a professor of education who specializes in the teaching of literacy and the use of innovative ways to promote literacy among children.

He is the author of many books for teachers and parents, texts for classroom use, and award winning children's picture books.

Reviews

[Pembroke Publishers · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Exploding the Reading delivers on the promise of its title... [and is] jam-packed with meaningful details that are likely to be relished by emerging as well as seasoned professionals. …Exploding the Reading is strategies-based and is a book that gives and gives. [it] is a valuable resource grounded in research, reflection, and extensive collaboration. The ideas in the text are... useful and highly creative. Frankly, the creativity of the teachers (including Booth) and students charmed me. Overall, Exploding the Reading showcases numerous response strategies and scenarios that Booth and his collaborators deployed with elan in diverse school sites. Such strategies are useful for uncovering and excavating some of what students feel, know, and think, and to subsequently engage them in more critical reflection and action in the material world." - CM Magazine, Vol. 21, No. 31 2015


"In Exploding the Reading, David Booth presents his findings from a significant and well-constructed pedagogical study. His ambitious study looks at different ways of teaching one single story in a multitude of different educational settings, as a way of investigating student's responses to different methodologies for teaching the text, and the implications for such methodologies in creating a strategy for learning across disciplines, rather than merely the acquisition of literacy. ... Exploding the Reading is ... an important addition to Canadian pedagogy, as much - perhaps more - for its systematic presentation of a multitude of instructional techniques appropriate for all ages as for its findings. ...What Booth advocates in Exploding the Reading is valid and valuable." - Resource Links, April 2015