Research on the gendered reading habits and preferences of boys and girls presents them as very different. This study focuses on the gendered reading habits and preferences of Singapore adolescent students (aged 12 to 17) to examine if such polarity exists in their reading habits. Drawing on survey data from 4830 adolescents in five secondary…

The link between recreational book reading and improved literacy performance is consistently supported by educational research. Increasing engagement in recreational book reading remains imperative for English teachers, though how to best facilitate this in a secondary context is an object of contention, with limited research in this field. The…

The benefit of recreational book reading is well recognized, however the role of teachers in encouraging recreational reading beyond the primary school years of skill acquisition is not clearly defined. In 2012, the West Australian Study in Adolescent Book Reading was undertaken in 20 schools in Western Australia. As part of the study, students…

This study examined primary school students' reading motivation and performance on the standardized exam. Participants included 901 seventh and eighth grade students from Kenya. There were 468 females and 433 males. Contrary to previous studies, results showed reading challenge and aesthetics, but not efficacy, predicted reading achievement,…

International studies suggest that the U.S. ranks below many Asian and European countries in the 21st century in terms of mathematics and science achievement. Few have looked beyond the classroom to understand these differences. Absolute and relative time spent in various out-of-school time (OST) activities may provide one explanation. This study…

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…