Classroom Reading as a Battle of the Sensory. Bodily Dimensions of Unshared Reading in Primary Education

ABSTRACT

Primary classrooms are dynamic spaces where young students learn to read and develop as readers. While reading inherently fosters an individual interaction with a text, its manifestation in a classroom transforms reading into a collective activity. This study explores young students' simultaneous, collective participation during private, unshared reading in the classroom, aiming to illuminate bodily practices of reading and discuss their relation to the interpretative work of reading. The data employed include observational (photographs and fieldnotes), reflectional (student logbooks) and experimental (co‐creation sessions) methods regarding different reading activities performed with 10–11‐year‐old students in grade four at two different public primary schools in Sweden. The reading activities were mainly conducted during Swedish language classes, where the students commonly read a book of their own choice individually, alongside their classmates in the classroom. The paper is inspired by assemblage theory, adopts an abductive approach with data and theory, and employs the concepts of micro‐discipline and sensory orchestration in the analysis. Results show individual and joint body‐sensory dimensions attached to classroom reading practices. Becoming a reader thus emerges as a complex bodily trial, where each student needs to find ways for their own body to favour their interaction with the text while simultaneously respecting the potential needs of other students in a collective reading classroom. The study problematizes what reading becomes in institutionalized settings and who is and is not considered a reader in primary classrooms. Understanding how the classroom contributes to framing and shaping the ways in which primary students are (un)able to engage productively with reading is important. Institutionalized reading forms a significant part in the development of young readers and is critical to the early stages of young people's ‘careers’ as readers. This study contributes to a further understanding of often taken‐for‐granted aspects of reading.