A recent decline in reading has become a major issue, as Americans are not reading out of necessity or as a leisure activity. In addition, a connection has been found between children's leisure reading habits and their level of academic achievement, causing even more concern. (Contains 1 table.)

Botswana's reading culture has captured the attention of reading experts in the country for more than two decades. The survey reported in this article involved 121 junior students (aged 12 to 15 years) from two private and two government-aided secondary schools. The results indicate that a majority of the students read during school holidays; that…

Rising eighth graders are expected to finish at least five books during the summer. Before summer vacation, the author instructs her students to keep a list of the books they completed on a piece of paper including the titles and authors and let them create and design an attractive way to inform everyone about the books they read. This article…

National concern about the reading proficiency of adolescents and the alarming statistics on the literacy achievement of African American males have created much interest in the topic of "motivated literacy" for researchers, policy makers, and educators. African American twelfth graders perform at the same level in reading as White…

The main purpose of this study was to state the relationship between the parenting style and students' attitude toward leisure reading. A total of 147 (65 male and 82 female) students from two classes (class five, 80 and class six, 67) were participated in the present study. The Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Elementary Reading…

Independent reading in the content areas is essential for advancing students' literacy growth through the grades. Middle school students, in particular, profit from opportunities to engage in actual reading and, simultaneously, to be supported from an appropriate structure. Specifically, they need substantial time to read, frequent immersion in a…

While teachers cannot travel back in time to visit their students at earlier ages, they can draw on the rich sets of experiences and knowledge that students bring to classrooms. In her latest book, Catherine Compton-Lilly examines the literacy practices and school trajectories of eight middle school students and their families. Through a unique…

To examine the current state of reading attitudes among middle school students in the United States, a survey was developed and administered to 4,491 students in 23 states plus the District of Columbia. The instrument comprised four subscales measuring attitudes toward: recreational reading in print settings, recreational reading in digital…

Teachers, parents, and librarians are constantly looking for methods and materials that engage students as readers and motivate them to increase the time they spend reading. In this article we describe findings from a study of middle schoolers' magazine reading habits that gave us a close look at the power of magazines as supplemental supports for…

The 160 third, seventh, and eleventh-graders involved in this study agreed, almost unanimously, that reading was "important." Participants cited the empowering benefits of reading as they justified this opinion. However, with regards to the enjoyment of reading, fewer middle and high school participants reported "liking"…

Throughout the history of education, it has been noted that teachers are influential people in lives of children (Applegate & Applegate, 2004; Daisey, 2010; Gambrell, 1996; Ruddell, 1995). Children spend one-third (or more) of the day with teachers; and as they enter into adolescence, children come in contact with more and more teachers during…

This study examined the relationship between fifth-grade students' out-ofschool reading habits and measures of their reading comprehension and writing abilities. The sample was composed of forty-two students attending an urban school in Northeastern Massachusetts. Each morning, for fifteen consecutive weeks, students recorded an approximation of…

This study sought to determine the effectiveness of the "Language!" reading curriculum and a school district-developed grade-level reading curriculum in raising student reading scores on Tennessee state-mandated tests and to determine if student attitudes toward academic and recreational reading differ based on reading curriculum. The…

This study extended the research of Aiken (2006), which originally examined the reading motivation, attitudes, and habits for a cohort of 6th grade readers from an affluent suburban community. The purpose of this research was to investigate if the students' self-concepts as readers and values of reading have changed from their 6th grade year…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics assessment measures students' knowledge and skills in mathematics and students' ability to apply their knowledge in problem-solving situations. At each grade, students responded to questions designed to measure what they know and can do across five mathematics content areas: number…