ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role of play in the development of reading for pleasure among young children and in raising life-long readers. It draws on the literature review and a qualitative study of children’s and adolescents’ reading habits conducted in Poland in 2013 (48 interviews with teenagers). The author relies on the concept of reading engagement as a crucial element of reading attitudes and motivations. “Engaged readers” are intrinsically motivated: they read literature to be emotionally involved, to experience it, and to find pleasure or excitement. Some features of reading engagement are related to play. Play based on a literary text is a useful tool for developing reading motivation. Such motivation can be strengthened through literary socialization, which involves activities such as, for example, reading together with caregivers, browsing through and talking about books with the child at home or at kindergarten, playing pretend or make-believe games based on the text being read.
