Interventions can enhance students' motivation for reading, but few researchers have assessed the effects of the specific motivation-enhancing practices that comprise these interventions. Even fewer have evaluated how students' perceptions of different intervention practices impact their later motivation and academic outcomes. In this study, we…

This review of research examines the constructs of reading motivation and synthesizes research findings of the past 20 years on the relationship between reading motivation and reading behavior (amount, strategies, and preferences), and the relationship between reading motivation and reading competence (reading skills and comprehension). In…

This study examined elementary school students' perceived support for recreational reading from their mothers, fathers, and friends. Participants, including 130 fourth graders and 172 fifth graders, completed the researcher-developed Reading Support Survey, which assesses how often children experience and how greatly they enjoy multiple types of…

Previous research has investigated motivations for reading by examining positive or affirming motivations, including intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. Related to them, we examined two negative, or undermining, motivations consisting of avoidance and perceived difficulty. We proposed that the motivations of intrinsic motivation and avoidance…

The authors examined how motivational and cognitive variables predict reading comprehension, and whether each predictor variable adds unique explanatory power when statistically controlling for the others. Fourth-grade students (N = 205) completed measures of reading comprehension in September and December of the same year, and measures of…

Low-achieving readers in Grade 5 often lack comprehension strategies, domain knowledge, word recognition skills, fluency, and motivation to read. Students with such multiple reading needs seem likely to benefit from instruction that supports each of these reading processes. The authors tested this expectation experimentally by comparing the…

Reading motivation has been viewed as a multifaceted construct with multiple constituents. Our investigation of motivational multiplicity expanded on previous literature by including motivation constructs (interest, perceived control, collaboration, involvement, and efficacy), text genres, specific versus general contexts, and the self-versus…

The processes of change in children's reading motivation have not been widely studied. We investigated whether situated interest for a specific book may lead to longer-term intrinsic motivation for general reading. Two schools with 120 grade 3 students filled out reading logs identifying their reasons for reading their favorite books twice. In…

One theoretical approach for increasing intrinsic motivation for reading consists of teachers using situational interest to encourage the development of long-term individual interest in reading. The authors investigated that possibility by using stimulating tasks, such as hands-on science observations and experiments, to increase situational…