The field of college developmental reading does not have a unified, agreed-upon approach to creating effective and efficient readers at the college level, as Reynolds and Werner (2003) have pointed out. For example, Keefe and Meyer (1991) assert the appropriateness of a holistic, whole-language approach for adult readers, while Bohr (2003)…

Students must be able to create meaning from career and technical education texts. Reading and comprehension of texts are skills that develop through practice with a variety of texts, including those in career and technical education. A quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group design was used to determine the effect of implementing content…

This paper examines the high levels of social connectedness and civic engagement between the [North] Brisbane School of Arts and the local metropolitan newspapers in their eagerness to establish and promote a reading club that would curb what they felt was the local community's preoccupation with reading popular novels. The Brisbane Literary…

Language arts teachers and library media specialists bear the responsibility of teaching students how to properly feed their brains. In this article, the author describes how she teaches her students to make wise choices when selecting books. Furthermore, she presents the "Brain Food Pyramid" model that looks similar to the food pyramid but it…

The action research project report began when the teacher researchers determined that students at Sites A and B struggled with reading achievement. The purpose of the project was to improve students' reading achievement through increased motivation, specific skill instruction, and additional practice time. The project involved 26 students: 17…

The purpose of this study was to explore whether or not adolescents who are deemed underachievers and who struggle to read school-assigned textbooks will engage with popular culture texts of their own choosing (e.g., magazines, comics, TV, video games, music CDs, graffiti, e-mail, and other Internet-mediated texts). The 60 student participants,…

This study investigated the reliability and structural validity of Elementary Reading Attitude Survey ([ERAS]; McKenna and Kear, 1990) scores in 575 academically talented students attending an academic summer program. Results indicated that ERAS Academic and Recreational scores had satisfactory internal consistency coefficients, and that…

Using a literacy project as illustration, I make a case for action research as an approach for external innovators who seek to effect educational change. Collaboration between the innovator and those for whom the innovation is intended, rather than power, is the key ingredient in bringing about change. Clients must be actively involved at all…

Reading for pleasure is associated with numerous educational and social benefits. For example, it has been associated with increased reading attainment and writing ability, greater breadth of vocabulary and greater general knowledge (e.g. Cox and Guthrie, 2001). Children who read very little do not reap these benefits, and studies show that when…

The problem is that with each passing year it becomes increasingly harder to maintain student motivation to read and improve reading comprehension. The purpose of this project was to increase reading motivation in elementary and middle school students through the use of multiple intelligences. This project was conducted by four teacher researchers…

In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts published "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America." This detailed study showed that Americans in almost every demographic group were reading fiction, poetry, and drama--and books in general--at significantly lower rates than 10 or 20 years earlier. The declines were steepest among…

Children's voluntary reading positively correlates with school grades, vocabulary growth, reading comprehension, verbal fluency, general information, and attitudes towards reading. Drawing on qualitative interviews collected alongside six waves of longitudinal survey data in an urban setting in eastern USA, We argue that voluntary reading by…

This study examines the longitudinal relations among early literacy experiences at home and children's kindergarten literacy skills, Grade 1 word reading and spelling skills, and Grade 4 reading comprehension, fluency, spelling, and reading for pleasure. Ninety French-speaking children were tested at the end of kindergarten and Grade 1, and 65…

Encouraging the love of reading is a vitally important priority that has positive consequences for students' literacy growth, both now and in the future. Children need daily, in-school opportunities to enjoy reading and become immersed in reading as a lifetime activity. Although a wide variety of considerations are useful for promoting the reading…

This article investigates China's middle school and secondary school teacher expectations of student book use as an aspect of learning environments. A questionnaire was used to probe the following teacher expectations: physical accessibility of books, homework, mastery of texts and types of extra-curricular reading materials. Results showed…