There is a growing research interest in the value of participative arts-based strategies for enhancing wellbeing amongst adults living with dementia. One such intervention, centred around literature, is the group activity called Shared Reading. The purpose of this case study of weekly Shared Reading sessions of poetry in a care home in Merseyside is to investigate instances of how participants with mild to moderate dementia collaborate in processes of meaning-making that allow them shared experiences of being moved by poetry. An (...) under-thematised aspect of psychological wellbeing is the capacity for being moved and for sharing such moments. This article addresses the following question: how can the specific multimodality of the text in the Shared Reading model help to bring about such experiences? Using Stern’s concepts of Now Moments and Moments of Meeting, this case study discusses various instances of unpredictable, surprising and spontaneous intersubjective moments between participant and poem, participant and reader leader, participant and staff, participant and relative. (shrink)

This study explored 12 cancer patients’ experiences from participating in an online and on-site Shared Reading group for 16 weeks in Norway. Shared Reading is a practice in which prose and poetry are read aloud in small parts and discussed along the way. The study is a qualitative evaluation study with a particular focus on how the participants experienced the reading group supported their life living with cancer. The study was mainly based on the data collected from focus group discussions (...) with the participants, which was analysed qualitatively through open coding. In total, four themes were identified: open space, disconnecting through connecting, community, and resonances and echoes. The participants expressed that the RG helped them to “balance life and cancer”, and “disconnect” from their illness. The cognitive effort needed was beneficial for the participants as a form for “cognitive training.” Since many of the participants had, due to their illness, completely stopped reading books, the reading group also brought literature back into the participants’ lives. Furthermore, it was essential for the participants to feel they contributed to a community, to feel useful and valuable for others. The texts were also important, as some of them resonated strongly with the participants in the way of activating memories and connecting a text to own experiences. After a session, a text could still have an impact as an echo. The results are synthesised, discussed, and supported through the framework of self-determination theory and, more specifically, the basic psychological need theory. The reading group was experienced as a support for autonomy, competence, and relatedness and promoted a feeling of intrinsic motivation that brought about new dimensions in the participants’ lives. The study wishes to increase our knowledge of the benefits of integrating Shared Reading groups as a low-cost, literature-based psychosocial support in cancer organisations. (shrink)

Reading, even when silent and individual, is a social phenomenon and has often been studied as such. Complementary to this view, research has begun to explore how reading is embodied beyond simply being ‘wired’ in the brain. This article brings the social and embodied perspectives together in a very literal sense. Reporting a qualitative study of reading practices across student focus groups from six European countries, it identifies an underexplored factor in reading behaviour and experience. This factor is the sheer (...) physical presence, and concurrent activity, of other people in the environment where one engages in individual silent reading. The primary goal of the study was to explore the role and possible associations of a number of variables (text type, purpose, device) in selecting generic (e.g. indoors vs outdoors) as well as specific (e.g. home vs library) reading environments. Across all six samples included in the study, participants spontaneously attested to varied, and partly surprising, forms of sensitivity to company and social space in their daily efforts to align body with mind for reading. The article reports these emergent trends and discusses their potential implications for research and practice. (shrink)

While language use in general is currently being explored as essentially situated in immediate physical environment, narrative reading is primarily regarded as a means of decoupling one’s consciousness from the environment. In order to offer a more diversified view of narrative reading, the article distinguishes between three different roles the environment can play in the reading experience. Next to the traditional notion that environmental stimuli disrupt attention, the article proposes that they can also serve as a prop for mental imagery (...) and/or a locus of pleasure more generally. The latter two perspectives presuppose a more clear-cut distinction between consciousness and attention than typically assumed in the communication literature. The article concludes with a list of implications for research and practice. (shrink)

Comparisons between audiobook listening and print reading often boil down to the fact that audiobooks impose limitations on the recipient’s continuous in-depth reflection. As a result, audiobook listening is considered a shallow alternative to reading. This chapter critically revisits the following three intuitions commonly associated with such comparisons: 1) Audiobooks elicit more mental imagery than print. 2) Audiobooks invite more inattentive processing than print. 3) Audiobook listening is more contingent on the environment than print reading. Instead of postulating the superiority (...) of print over audio, the chapter argues that the three intuitions are largely based on a misconception of print reading, its experiential characteristics, and its function. (shrink)