This paper presents an evaluation of "Literacy for Life" (LfL) -- a whole-school literacy programme, implemented in five secondary schools in England. The aims of LfL were to improve literacy attainment and to promote positive attitudes to reading and writing. However, when compared to other schools, there is little or no evidence that…

This article is an investigation into the Reading Partners scheme at a large inner London comprehensive school in England; this research comes from a small scale study I carried out as part of my Masters of Teaching at the Institute of Education, University College London. Reading Partners is a project whereby younger and older students within the…

Many of us are plagued by negative memories of sustained silent reading. In some of these memories, we are the students, attempting to read a book that didn't hold our interest or trying to read over the din of our disengaged classmates. In other memories, we are the teachers, suffering through a ten-minute classroom management nightmare, deciding…

This study aimed at investigating the relationship between reading attitude, personality, self-regulation and metacognitive awareness of reading strategies of secondary school students. In order to carry out the aim four scales were used to 419 high school students in Kirsehir province in Turkey. It was used Lisrel 8.80 and SPSS software to…

Developing an appropriate competence in reading in English as a second language is a key factor for subsequent academic success. This study investigated second language reading anxiety of secondary school students. A questionnaire was distributed to 72 female students and focus-group interviews were conducted with 19 volunteer students. Overall…

Using 18 weeks of classroom data from a much larger ethnographic study, Kirkland examines the reading ideologies influencing the literacy engagement of a young Black male, Derrick. (To protect participants' identities, this article uses pseudonyms in place of participants' actual names.) In doing so, Kirkland theorizes about how young Black males…

Lack of reading motivation impedes upper elementary and secondary school students' willingness to improve critical reading skills and strategies to be successful in school. Struggling readers often show a negative attitude towards reading tasks and manifest low motivation to read. Although the importance of motivation is clear, there is limited…

Lack of reading motivation impedes upper elementary and secondary school students' willingness to improve critical reading skills and strategies to be successful in school. Struggling readers often show a negative attitude towards reading tasks and manifest low motivation to read. Although the importance of motivation is clear, there is limited…

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"…

Thirty eleventh-grade students were the subjects of a study to determine whether a person reporting a high degree of mental imagery in reading would also score well on comprehension tests and report a positive attitude toward reading. Subjects were first given the Estes Reading Attitude Scale, the results of which indicated no significant…

A study explored differences in attitudes and values that two groups of eleventh graders derived from literature. One group was comprised of 25 students from a basic skills class. The second group of 20 students was selected at random from an American literature class. All of the students were enrolled in a New Jersey urban high school. A pretest…

Shares the experiences of a class of eleventh grade readers involved in a classroom research project and their understanding of the act of reading. Discusses reading as both a solitary and a group activity. (MS)

To examine the relationship between reading performance and television viewing, the state of Connecticut's third assessment of educational progress in reading included questions relating to the reading materials available in students' homes, their television viewing habits, and their attitudes toward reading. Approximately 8,000 students in grades…

A study examined the poetic conventions of rhyme, meter, and diction to determine whether central tendencies and differences in evaluative response at various stages of late childhood and adolescence were discernible. Data were gathered from students of four grade levels (5, 7, 9, 11) enrolled in New York City public schools (359 students in all).…