ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter picks up on the question posed at the end of Chapter 11 about the potential educational implications of this work on adult reading aloud, arguing that literacy education needs to be based on careful and evolving understandings of what people do with literacy and what people feel matters most in their literacy use. It then provides an overview of the picture of contemporary adult reading aloud practices detailed in the book and explores what this means for how we understand ‘reading.’ It then turns to themes or threads which have recurred throughout the book: power and visibility; role-taking, places and spaces; the fixed and the fluid; skills, meanings and practices; and identity, love and voice, as well stressing that this is not an argument that anyone should do more reading aloud, that reading aloud suits everyone or that we should forget about silent reading: rather it is simply a reminder not to forget about the forms of oral reading that may be going on across the world. This chapter ends by considering next steps for literacy research, practice and policy – and some final words from RABiT participants.
