Creative Reading

Book excerpt: This book aims to enlarge the possibilities of reading by suggesting ways to make reading more imaginative and by encouraging a new attitude toward the act of reading. The book discusses the mystery of learning to read, the physiology and psychology of reading, the ongoing contests between various methods of instruction. It guides readers through their own personal histories with a series of questions related to their reading habits before beginning school, in school, and after completing their formal educations. After a brief discussion of common reading errors that can be used creatively, the central chapter of the book, "Creative Reading Techniques," suggests exercises that make reading an adventure, highly interactive, and imaginative, using both classic and modern literature in ways that blend reading and writing. Along the way, among other things, the book talks about the influence of typography, movies, and television on reading, the joys of misunderstanding, the music of Spike Jones, skywriting, Dada poetry, reading in dreams, the way words sound in the reader's head, and the setting in which text is read. (NKA)