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Reading Aloud in Britain Today (RABiT) began as two-year study of contemporary adult reading aloud practices, to find out whether, what, where, how and why adults read aloud, or listen to others.

Do you ever read out loud?

Shouting? Whispering? Chanting?

To one person, in a group or completely alone?

Much is written about reading aloud as a teaching or motivational tool –Ìýa means to an end –Ìýbut not so much is written about reading aloud as an end in itself, an everyday adult practice. Anecdotal evidence suggests that adults do indeed read aloud for various purposes and across various life domains and yet these practices are rarely talked about.

We wanted to find out more.

The project

RABiT aimedÌýto expand what we all think of when we hear the word 'reading' by documenting and analysing contemporary adult reading aloud practices. We want to explore the diversity of reading practices (on and offline) that adults perform or experience in different communities, languages, contexts and phases of our lives.ÌýThis was (and still is) part of a desire to better understand the role of reading in community life and the relationship between forms of reading and other cultural practices, such as speechmaking, story-telling or professions of faith.

Over the course of the funded project, we captured the reading aloud practices of hundreds of different adults as possible across Scotland, England and Wales. We reachedÌýpeople of all different ages, genders, ethnicities, faiths, cultural, educational and language backgrounds, in both urban and rural locations.

Timescale

RABiT ran from June 2017 until the end of May 2019.

Year one

Year one of the project involved data collection and analysis, using:

• a directive
• completed by over 600 adults across Scotland, Wales and England
• 49 semi-structured interviews and
• 44 audio recordings of people reading aloud
• 91 recordings in the , shelfmark C1765

Year two

In year two we travelled around and spoke with different groups of people about what they think about the RABiT findings and reading aloud more broadly. We explored and shared the findings through:

• four regional community events
• an academic symposium
• writing publications of different sorts
• depositing interviews and audio recordings in the British Library Sound Archive, subject to permissions/agreement
• four national and international conference presentations

Table of contents

• Publications and blogs
• Events
• Resources for discussion, reflection and next steps
• The team
• Project partners
• Advisory group

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Publications and blogs

Publications

• Duncan, S.,ÌýFreeman, M. (2019). . British Journal of Educational Studies
• Duncan S. (2019). . Volume 97/Spring 2019
• Duncan, S. (2018). . Word Matters: The Journal of the Society of Teachers of Speech and Drama, 68 (1), 19
• Duncan, S. (2018). . Changing English, 1–16

Blogs

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Events

RABiT academic symposium in London

• Everyday reading: explorations of literacy and oracy, 17 November 2018

Regional community events

• Reading aloud in Britain today –Ìýwhat does this mean for adult learners?Ìý19 December 2018, Pontypool, Wales
• So what does this all mean? RABiT at the Glasgow Women's Library.Ìý24 January 2019, Glasgow, Scotland
• Oral literacies: Poetry, performance and the written.Ìý21 February 2019, Edinburgh,ÌýScotland
• Reading aloud: implications of the RABiT project for teachers.Ìý5 March 2019, Nottingham, England

Conference presentations

• ‘Widening the Ownership of the Word? –ÌýWhen adults read aloud' presentation at the
• 'Lend Me Your Ears: when adults read aloud instead of in silence' at the
• 'Reading Aloud Today: and what this could mean for the teaching of reading, presentation' at the Ethiopian English Language Teachers Association/Ethiopian English Language Professionals’ Association, 25th May 2019, Addis Ababa
• Research keynote: 'Reading Aloud in Britain Today (RABiT): Lessons for Policy and Practice' at the English, Maths and ESOL Annual Conference, Learning and Work Institute, 14 November 2018
• 'Mass observing adult reading aloud: finding a 'dual vision' of literacy today.' at the

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Resources for discussion, reflection and next steps

Following on from the discussions held in the second year of the project, we have createdÌý'Discussion, Reflection and Next Steps' resources. These are to read, share and discuss. We hope that they will spark reflections and actions of different sorts.Ìý

Please email Sam on sam.duncan@ucl.ac.uk to share what you have done or thought about.

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The team

RABiT was led by Sam Duncan,Ìý, through an AHRC Early Careers Research Fellowship.

Sam was supported by her mentor,Ìý.

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Project partners

We were delighted to work with the support of our project partners:Ìý

• The British Library
• Learning and Work Institute
• The Reading Agency
• The Mass Observation Project

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to these project friends who helped us navigate around Skye, and find people to interview and reading aloud practices to record.

• a collaborative project which has been set up to preserve, digitise, catalogue and make available online several thousand hours of Gaelic and Scots recordings.
• slices of life and work in the 21st century Hebrides –Ìýfor language learners, and anyone else.

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Advisory group

We are very grateful to the RABiT Advisory Group for their invaluable guidance throughout the project and, we hope, beyond.

• , Discipline Lead, Community Learning and Development, University of Dundee
• Debbie Hicks, Creative Director,
• Dr , Director, Centre for Research and Evaluation in Muslim Education, ×î×¼µÄÁùºÏ²ÊÂÛ̳ Institute of Education
• Professor , Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Sheffield
• Jane Mace, Practitioner, Trainer and Author in Adult Literacy Education since the 1970s
• , Lead Curator for Spoken English at the British Library
• Kirsty Pattrick, Archive Officer
• Lesley Allen, South-East London, Co-Ordinator of the , Oval
• Dr Maxine Burton, Researcher and Writer on Adult Literacy, Linguistics and History of Education
• Professor Mike Baynham, Emeritus Professor of TESOL, School of Education, University of Leeds
• Sarah Turvey, Principal Lecturer in English Literature, University of Roehampton and Director, (PRG)

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In the mediaÌý

How do adults read aloud?

Dr Sam Duncan discusses the findings of the Reading Aloud in Britain Today (RABiT) project, which explores when and why adults read aloud.

Read:

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Why we read out loud

Dr Sam Duncan discusses the motivations behind reading aloud and Reading Aloud in Britain Today (RABiT).
Listen (from 28:30):Ìý
18 March 2019

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RABiT was made possible through an Arts and Humanities Research Council .