Reports the following information from a survey of secondary school students: the amount of leisure reading undertaken by students; the type of literature read; the effect of personal-, school-, and home-related variables on the variation in amount of time spent on leisure reading; students' sources of literature; and students' attitudes toward…

Promoted by effective advertising and disseminated by word of mouth, many schools have adopted Accelerated Reader[R] as a supplementary reading program or as their primary reading program. Accelerated Reader[R]'s philosophy is that by using the system, students are motivated to read more and better books. A study investigated whether seventh grade…

Describes the use of a reading development strategy of group prediction, of encouraging children to decide and to justify what is going to happen next in a selected story, as a means to motivate students to become active readers. (HOD)

This feature tells how one teacher would arrange a sensible reading program that not only teaches children how to read but how to use reading as a skill. It also reports on how five schools encourage the reading habit. (Editor/SJL)

A rationale and procedure for promoting outside reading and assigning book reports. (RL)

Provides three teachers' perspectives on students' reading choices. Discusses reading choices of high school students. Outlines teacher strategies of discovering what books students enjoy and how to help them enjoy others. (PM)

Evidence that shows the value of free voluntary reading (FVR) for language acquisition and literacy development is reviewed. Additional evidence is reported showing the advantages of FVR as a source of ideas and information, contributor to life success, and inhibitor of verbal memory decline. (Contains 34 references.) (LB)

Describes the successful implementation in a Georgia elementary school of the Reading Millionaires Project, a reading incentive program to promote recreational reading and to create student interest in reading. (SR)

Compares readability levels of the recreational reading books selected by fourth graders. Finds that the students chose books from their school libraries and read (or chose not to read) books on all their reading levels. Concludes that students read books related to their interests, regardless of the book's readability or the student's reading…

Describes a nationwide survey of the voluntary reading interests and habits of Jamaican children to discover the specific reading interests of sixth graders relative to the known reading interests of their peers in North America and the United Kingdom. Discusses the role of gender and geography. (Author/LRW)

Discusses assumptions behind the implications of English teachers' in Thailand--both Thai and non-Thai--beliefs that students do not like reading. Discusses how teachers can harness their learners' enthusiasm at a young age and introduce reading for pleasure into their teaching, as well as how to encourage their learners to read outside the…

Examines non-goal oriented transactions with texts to investigate the information encounter in the context of daily living. Analyzes interview responses that illuminate two aspects of reading for pleasure: how readers choose these books; and books that have made a significant difference in readers' lives. Concludes with five themes emerging from…

Students in sixth and ninth grades were surveyed to determine attitudes toward reading and identify factors in the lives of older children and teens associated with the development of a love of reading. A group of 14 students who love to read, as well as an equal number of students who prefer not to read, were then interviewed about their reading…

Encouraging the love of reading is a vitally important priority that has positive consequences for students' literacy growth, both now and in the future. Children need daily, in-school opportunities to enjoy reading and become immersed in reading as a lifetime activity. Although a wide variety of considerations are useful for promoting the reading…

A study explored how adolescents' negotiations and interpretations of out-of-school reading discussions were shaped by larger institutional and societal contexts that regularly influence young people's actions and interactions with peers and adults. Drawing from a theoretical framework that conceives of discourse as social practice, such discourse…