Argues that three specific areas of influence contribute to shaping the attitudes and expectations of adolescent reading in Britain: family; friendship groups; and school peer groups. Responses from 255 children reveal marked patterns of gender difference in the reading experience and identify the school curriculum's role in promoting particular…

Two studies focused on children's reading but employed very different procedures and techniques. The first study examined the link between the levels of children's reading comprehension and the quantity of reading they did. Subjects, 198 children chosen at random from years 5, 6, and 7 of a single elementary school in Adelaide, Australia,…

A survey examined the reading interests and availability of relevant reading materials for 25 bilingual fifth-grade students in a rural southwestern school. Area residents were primarily descendants of early Hispanic settlers. Discusses the importance of targeting student reading interests and making materials of interest available in classrooms…

Different methods of measuring print experience were studied for 63 fifth graders who completed daily activity diaries. Book reading time estimate was correlated with new measures of reading time that use a checklist. Results support recognition checklist measures as convenient proxy indicators of children's print exposure. (SLD)

Describes observations of recreational reading material selection by kindergarten and first-grade boys and girls. Discussion covers gender-related preferences in choices of recreational library materials, fiction and non-fiction choices, flexibility in reading choices, and gender roles. Observations made in 1983 and 1984 are appended. Five sources…

Reviews research in which children's processing of individual words is examined in prose context. When taken together, the data suggest that the reader's dependence on contextual constraint for individual word identification decreases with age. (HOD)

Sixty-three fifth-grade children completed daily activity diaries indicating how they spent their non-school time for 15 days. From these diaries, estimates of the minutes per day that were spent in various activities were derived. The estimate of book-reading time from the activity diary correlated with new measures of individual differences in…

A study investigated whether 19 at-risk fifth-grade students would benefit from using Sustained Silent Reading. Ten students were exposed to 15 minutes of Sustained Silent Reading at least four times a week over the course of a school year, while nine students were not. All students were administered a pre- and post- self-concept inventory and a…

Diaries showing how 920 Irish fifth graders spent their leisure time on three designated days within one week augmented data about the children's personal, school, and home characteristics to aid in determining the primary factors related to the amount and type of leisure time reading. The children reported spending a median time of 60 minutes per…

A determination as to whether more positive attitudes toward reading could be developed in elementary school children who, because of economic and cultural factors, had limited experience with books was sought in this study. Children from nonreading backgrounds were selected to take part in a books exposure program which supplemented the school's…

The major interest of this study is the amount of time children spend reading. Data was gathered unobtrusively by having the 150 5th grade subjects keep time records of all their activities for a 2 week period. These were coded into 7 categories and scores were related to those derived from tests of ability, achievement, self-concept and reading…

Used a questionnaire to examine the home reading experiences of 249 second graders enrolled in a Title I rural K-2 elementary school. Found that second graders read aloud to caregivers more than the caregivers read aloud to the children. Reading interactions occurred at home. The majority of homes had children's books and other reading materials…

Noting that the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress used a variety of innovative assessment approaches, this executive summary discusses a number of issues related to the new reading assessment framework. An introductory section of the executive summary discusses the new framework for reading assessment, the transition in reporting…

This practicum was designed to address the need for the intermediate and upper grade level English as a Second Language (ESL) students to become independent learners in the literacy process. The subjects, 13 boys and 3 girls from Pakistan, Philippines, Jordan, Israel, Korea, Turkey, and Thailand were dependent on the teacher when they had…

This book, which contains selected papers given at the 1970 International Reading Association convention, is aimed at people who are looking for challenging material pertaining to literature for children and young people. It is divided into two sections. The first part--Qualities of Literature, Readers, and Writers in Action--contains a…