Richard Allington reviews the nature of the reading achievement gap between students from low-income and high-income families, concluding that the limited access to children's books experienced by children from low-income families lies at the base of the problem. The fact that children from low-income families lose reading achievement every summer…

Reading for Pleasure (RfP) acknowledges the importance of reader engagement and the role of the teacher as a reader of children's literature. The foundational work of the Teachers as Readers (TARs) programme successfully illustrated the impact of RfP activities on student learning. Previous studies of teachers' reader identities have shown a…

Fiction, more than expository text, nurtures intimate connections between text and the reader's life experiences. This dimension of reader response is underexplored in relation to children. Adapting methods from Empirical Literary Studies to educational research objectives, the authors employed the concept of 'remindings', i.e. reminiscing…

As the pedagogy of teachers depends partly on their earlier life experiences, investigating the prior reading practices of student teachers is crucial. This study investigated Finnish and English student teachers' (N = 353) own reading, the importance of their own reading to their reading pedagogy, and the relationship of these to teachers'…

Today's teachers are required to spend most of their English/Language Arts time in teacher-directed instruction with required text, which is primarily informational. Little, if any, time is allocated to self-selected independent reading (Garan & DeVoogd, 2008). In addition, some teachers do not understand the importance of independent reading…

This article critically reviews the personalization logic embedded in reading recommendation systems developed for 2- to 11-year-old children and its (dis)alignment with Papert's constructionist and socio-constructionist theories of learning. It is argued that the current design fails to incorporate the computer culture that Papert envisioned for…

Regular recreational reading offers benefits across a range of literacy outcomes, as well as supporting learning in other subject areas, offering cognitive benefits, and potentially fostering empathy. Therefore, increasing frequency of engagement in recreational reading can play an important role in addressing inequity in literacy outcomes once…

In early 2017, Scholastic, in conjunction with YouGov, conducted a survey to explore the attitudes and behaviours of English- and French-speaking Canadian children and families around reading books for fun. The key findings of this research, based on a nationally representative sample of 1,939 parents and children, including 371 parents of…

Silent reading and book discussion about books read for pleasure can increase reading frequency and support the strengthening of student engagement in the beneficial practice of recreational reading. However, little is known about children's attitudes toward and experiences of these pedagogical activities. Qualitative findings from 47 children…

The benefits of regular recreational reading for literacy development have been widely acknowledged, and as such, encouraging children to be life-long readers is an educational imperative. Teachers who are models of keen recreational reading can play an important role in fostering a keen love of reading in children, so that they regularly engage…

In late 2015, Scholastic, in conjunction with YouGov, conducted a survey to explore family attitudes and behaviours in Australia around reading books for fun. The key findings of this research, based on a nationally representative sample of 1,748 parents and children, including 358 parents of children aged 0-5; 695 parents of children aged 6-17;…

In summer 2015, Scholastic, in conjunction with YouGov, conducted a survey to explore family attitudes and behaviours in the United Kingdom around reading books for fun. The key findings of this research, based on a nationally representative sample of 1,755 parents and children, including 349 parents of children ages 0-5; 703 parents of children…

There are many opportunities each year for children to receive gifts from adults. Parents, teachers, and community members often ask school librarians for suggestions concerning educational gifts for children. Literacy, however, is the greatest gift any adult can give a child. The gift of literacy can take many paths and use many different tools.…

A lack of implementation of classroom strategies can hinder elementary teachers' efforts to stay current in children's literature and recreational reading activities to promote reading for pleasure to students. Basal and literature-based curricula have been a solution to this problem, but their effectiveness is unclear as teachers are often faced…

Several authors have suggested that a teacher's ability to encourage a disposition to read may be linked to their personal reading habits and views of literacy. This study examined the relationship between elementary school teachers' reading habits, knowledge of children's literature, and their use of literacy best practices in the classroom. One…