Calendar of Events

Cultivating Joy: Reaching and Teaching Readers

Trends in Americans’ reading habits suggest there is both a need and an opportunity to “turn the page” when it comes to developing lifelong pleasure in reading. Book clubs remain popular and sales show upticks in adult and adolescent interest in fiction. But data also shows that people less often read for fun, with children across ages and skill levels in a particular slump. This one-week forum presented by Assistant Professor of Education Stacy Haynes-Moore will explain how people develop as lifelong readers by cultivating joy in learning to read and reading to learn. The session will explain readers’ educational and developmental processes and how people develop senses of themselves as readers. As an audience, we will consider how we read, what we enjoy about reading, what we remember about learning to read and which reading experiences shaped us. We will then examine changes and continuities in approaches to reading to better understand what today’s school-aged children and teens read (or don’t). We will address some of today’s challenges for educators and students, including the evolution of digital technologies, uses of scripted curriculum, and issues of literature censorship, and what we as individuals and a society can do to cultivate a joy of reading.

Thursday Forum is held in Kesler Auditorium on the first floor of Hickok Hall. Each weekly session begins with registration and refreshments from 8:45-9:15 AM, followed by the lecture until 11:30 AM. The presentations blend lecture, media such as film and music, and discussion.

Admission to each four-week forum series is $40. Admission to individual lectures and one- and two-week forums is $12 per week. Admission includes the lecture and morning refreshments of coffee, tea and pastries. Payment can be made in person on Thursday mornings by cash or personal check. Credit card payments can be processed by registering here in advance. For more information, visit the Thursday Forum website or call 319.399.8523.

In the event of inclement weather, consult local media outlets to find out if the day’s forum will take place.
 

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