Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, Professor Alice Horning, crowned a successful two-week residency at Flinders with a public lecture on 3 December about the Importance of Reading.

Professor Horning, whose residency was hosted by Tully Barnett and Karen Vered from the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, presented a case for educators across the disciplines to help students develop critical literacy.

She explained how explicitly teaching reading strategies and methods of analysis, synthesis, evaluation – and its application across the curriculum – is everyone’s business.

“Reading is a team sport,” said Professor Horning. “It is up to all disciplines to engage with the challenges of the place of reading in education today, in civic life, and for democracy.” The lecture was well attended by Flinders staff, students and members of the wider Flinders community.

Professor Horning also facilitated a workshop on Reading for Writing Development, in which participants explored the psycholinguistic character of reading, learned about a mindful framework for reading and writing, and developed classroom strategies to integrate rhetorical reading into disciplinary teaching. Participants included staff from Sciences, Nursing, HASS, and the Teaching Librarians’ team.

She also met with the Teaching Librarian team for a half day and consulted with individual academic staff on reading and literacy research projects. Her residency concluded with a nationwide Skype meeting of scholars working in the literacy arena.

Professor Horning is a series editor with Peter Lang Publishers and told Flinders academics she looks forward to receiving manuscripts for peer review publication.