"It's all coming together": an encounter between implied reader and actual reader in the Australian rainforest

The paper discusses how the literary theory of the 'implied reader' offers a focus for the teacher's initial reading of a text and provides a formative assessment tool. Iser's Implied Reader theory is discussed, and Jeannie Baker's picture book "Where the Forest Meets the Sea" is analysed from that perspective. Analysis of subsequent reading events with Year 4 pupils identifies where the children were able to take up the invitation offered by the text, and where difficulties arose. The implications for teachers' subject knowledge are then discussed.