The role of student choice reading on engagement and academic achievement from the perspective of teachers is the topic of this study. The problem addressed is that middle school students often struggle with reading due to a lack of engagement in English Language Arts courses. Students and educators are mainly impacted by this problem; however,…

Although several longitudinal studies have confirmed that need-supportive teacher behaviour shapes intrinsic motivation in school, longitudinal studies on its role for intrinsic reading motivation are lacking. To fill in this gap, this study investigated whether changes in selected aspects of student-perceived teacher need-supportive behaviour in…

The purpose of this explanatory mixed methods study was to understand how 9th grade honors and general education language arts students made course enrollment decisions through the lens of the Expectancy-Value (E-V) theory. A survey was administered to 9th grade students (N = 118) attending a public high school with the overall mean score…

The learning losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic make this an important time to identify strategies that can help students accelerate their learning. The Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI) is a year-long supplemental reading intervention that is intentionally designed to address the motivational barriers of middle school students…

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of a collaborative inquiry group of middle school ELA teachers who were utilizing the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) framework to create a virtual library of e-books, examine students' reading motivation data, and implement classroom practices intended to increase student reading value, motivation,…

A major component of reading in subject areas is motivation to engage with text in different and specific ways. Yet, scant research captures fluctuations in adolescents' daily reading motivation in subject areas or across diverse reading activities: important information for supporting discipline-specific reading performance. Thus, this study…

This single instrument case study illuminates the aesthetic transactions an adolescent male student constructs in response to an experimental Gothic studies reading unit implemented by his cooperating teacher over a sixth month period in his seventh grade ELA (English/ Language Arts) class. Ray is described as ''lazy' regarding academic reading…

This 12-week mixed-methods study examined an 8th-grade English language arts curriculum designed to increase participants' (N = 62) reading comprehension and reading motivation. Data consisted of demographic information, pre/post standardized reading comprehension scores, reading motivation survey scores, and participants' periodic semistructured…

Students' initial eagerness and excitement for learning to read are evident when they enter primary grades. Their levels of enthusiasm for reading diminish through elementary (Eccles, Wigfield, Harold, & Blumenfeld, 1993; Mazzoni, Gambell, & Koreamaki, 1999) and middle school (McKenna & Kearn, 1990; Oldfather & McLaughlin, 1993)…

Over the last four years, East Coast High (a pseudonym), a midsized high school on the East Coast, has failed to meet adequate yearly progress targets in reading as set forth by the Department of Education (DOE) in response to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Each year, many students at East Coast High entered the library and chose a book they…

Conducted at 10 schools in four communities, this study investigated relationships of young adolescents' reading motivation, reading preference, and reading engagement as influenced by their English Language Arts teachers' use of instructional strategies. Students in eight sixth grade (N = 196) and nine seventh grade (N = 218) classes completed a…

Two language arts teachers in a small, rural middle school set a goal of improving their reading instruction and ultimately their students' learning. The two teachers implemented Reading Workshop as their new methodology for teaching reading to all six of their 7th and 8th grade classes. Interviews and classroom observations, over the course of…

Now in its third edition, the "Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts"--sponsored by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English--offers an integrated perspective on the teaching of the English language arts and a comprehensive overview of research in the field. Prominent…