ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter explores the potential of reader response approaches in the classroom for exploring narrative and teaching children about its characteristics. The ways in which readers and texts interact, with both sides contributing to the making of meaning, is explored. The problem of focusing exclusively on the text and its features, to the exclusion of the ways different child readers are responding to it, can result in children viewing narrative texts as things to be analysed. The exercise becomes one of answering ‘text questions’ correctly. Giving status, initially, to the responses of readers produces a much richer appreciation of narrative, as through these responses the ways in which the text is constructed and written are exposed for consideration.
