Compelling international evidence illustrates the potential of reading for pleasure for enhancing student reading achievement along with other learning and wellbeing outcomes. Yet profound challenges exist for nations seeking to encompass attention to students' volitional reading. In this paper we critically review the growing research evidence in…

The most recent OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey enables educators, policy makers and the wider community to compare Australian students with each other, as well as with their counterparts across the world. PISA measures the extent to which 15-year-old students near the end of compulsory education have acquired the…

The emphasis on schools' providing reading materials for students at home is very much on the primary school years, when the skill of reading is being acquired. Little consideration has been given to the impact of curtailing school-mediated access to books beyond this point. Regular recreational reading offers a wide range of benefit, and is…

This paper explores the key findings of a range of research on teenagers and reading, focusing on the implications for classroom practice and student engagement. There is a particular emphasis on addressing the needs of underachieving and reluctant readers and the ways in which promoting reading for pleasure and enjoyment can contribute to student…

In 2001, the Australian Centre for Youth Literature released "Young Australians Reading," a report on the reading attitudes of Australia's 10- to 18-year-olds prepared by Woolcott Research, that suggests there is a large body of young people who are waiting for guidance, support, and inspiration if they are to become lifelong readers.…

Describes a program called Get Real 'n' Read developed by Perth (Australia) public librarians to offer adolescents a greater incentive to use the library and to improve the image of reading. Topics include demographic characteristics of the area; planning; and advertising, including donations appealing to the target audience. (LRW)

This article describes a theoretically informed methodology for eliciting the voices of adolescent boys identified by their teachers and parents as reluctant leisure time readers. Similar methods have also been used to draw out the voices of the boys' parents to understand their efforts to guide and maintain their sons' literacy practices, within…