Reading yourself while you read

From my Ph.D. research in Educational Sciences at Milano-Bicocca, this paper will explore the experience of fathers who read aloud to their 3 to 6 year old children. Bruner (1992) states that reading and listening to the stories is a way of giving meaning to ourselves and our world; my purpose is to understand the link between reading narrative and narrating ourselves in the experience of an adult who reads books aloud to his children. I made ten biographical interviews, choosing fathers with different ages, qualifications, professions and also with different numbers, genders and ages of children. According to my research project, in these interviews it is possible to identify three levels of autobiographical narrations linked to reading. In the first level we find the narration of themselves as readers of narrative. When the fathers tell the researcher their experiences of reading aloud to their children, their narration is focused on the reading practice. However from this perspective they can review the life history of their children and their family, their relationship, habits and beliefs, using a new point of observation that allows them to discover unexpected links or to find unusual aspects (Demetrio, 1996). In the second level, the reading aloud practice becomes autobiographical. The fathers, as they read, remember their childhood, rediscover forgotten tales and offer their memories to their children, sometimes speaking directly but most at all giving them their old books or telling them their favourite stories (Dallari, 2000). At last, the children books create a relationship between the fathers' narration and my biography: when they talk about books, they ask me if I know them, they want to know my opinion. Their questions allow me to narrate myself. Like them, I also can remember my favourite tales and my own history of narrator. My fondness for children's books appears evident and involves me in a research dialogue: knowledge becomes a shared process (Denzin,1989b). In my research project I will try to analyse these different levels and their connection, referring to current reflection on biographical and narrative research (Merrill & West, 2009)