• Shared Reading

Take part in a free Shared Reading session to experience a book group with a difference

Alton’s Allen Gallery and Fareham’s Westbury Manor Museum are proud to be supporting a global reading revolution by offering free Shared Reading sessions to individuals and organised groups looking to connect with each other through literature. Our trained Reader Leaders will read aloud a poem, story or play, bringing the words to life through live reading and discussion. Group members will experience the text in their own way, but the writing will provide a shared language with which to understand their selves and others better.

Earlier in 2019, six Hampshire Cultural Trust volunteers were trained as Reader Leaders by the charity The Reader, an organisation which aims to build lively communities that bring people together and books to life. These Reader Leaders will share a piece of great literature that includes powerful and emotive language in order for the group to explore their lives through the words read aloud. This technique of reading aloud in real-time allows everyone involved to be part of the same shared live experience, an important tool for helping participants to understand their individual and collective inner lives through reading.

Group discussion is encouraged but participants are not put under any pressure to contribute if they don’t want to. Shared Reading sessions are a place for everyone to feel at ease whether they talk, laugh, share or just listen. The aim of Shared Reading is that each group member will be able to respond personally to the words through thoughts and memories provoked by the reading as well as better understand the feelings of others. For more information contact the Allen Gallery on Alton.Museums@HampshireCulturalTrust.org.uk or call Westbury Manor Museum on 01329 822063.

Hampshire Cultural Trust aims to change lives through culture. This is done through the 26 arts and museum attractions that it operates across Hampshire, county-wide outreach programs that bring culture to local communities and a diverse range of social impact initiatives targeted at those who are most vulnerable or disadvantaged and who would not usually have access to arts and culture.

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