ABSTRACT
One teacher making the decision to adopt a reader-response process in conjunction with a literature-based reading curriculum requires significant attitude and assumption shifting. It necessitates training to engage students’ responses. When the personnel of a school district make this decision, the action implications may seem formidable. Organization is important in classrooms using reader response, especially when groups of students are using different books. Older children need modeling and instruction if their responses to literature are not to look like book reports. Used to paraphrasing the plot of library books, students must learn how to respond to books. A specific problem that has been constant is the task of trying to integrate response theory with the skills and strategies that elementary-age children must be taught in order that they learn to read both efferently and aesthetically. In a very real sense the aims of reading instruction and the aims of a literary education are in conflict.
