To promote independent reading in middle school, teachers must understand why adolescents choose to read or not read a specific book. Yet, there is limited research on the factors that students consider when evaluating books that teachers have introduced them to in class. This study aimed to describe factors that 43 Grade 7 and 8 students noted as…

The new ELAR TEKS includes a new standard that requires students to "self-select text and read independently for a sustained period of time" (19 TAC Chapter 110). Though independent reading has been a literacy practice across the state, the state standards has only recently included it as a student expectation. Literacy leaders include…

This article summarizes the findings of a 2017 qualitative, multiple case study that explored the factors that impact gifted students' recreational reading selections. It offers an overview of the steps school librarians and other educators can take to foster independent reading habits in gifted students.

This study investigated teachers' perceptions of the practice of extensive reading (ER) in the Asian context. One hundred and nineteen L2 teachers in Asia responded to an online questionnaire that probed into their reasons for implementing ER, the difficulties they encountered, and their perception about the effectiveness of different ways of…

The author, a veteran second-grade teacher, has spent the past three years developing a system to help her students find appropriate books to read during independent reading time. The article describes how the CLICKS system evolved and how to introduce it to a classroom of young readers. (Contains 7 figures.)

Can students read difficult but self-selected texts--and if so, how? In this article we describe what we learned about middle school students' use of background knowledge and specific vocabulary from interviews and surveys in our longitudinal study of magazine reading habits. Then we discuss the implications of these findings for structuring…

In recent decades, researchers have indicated that U.S. schools have underexposed elementary grade students to informational text. The increased exposure to this genre should be a top instructional priority. In the present study, we explored 46 third-grade students' attitudes toward and perceptions of informational text. Using three data sources…

Audiobooks are excellent tools to help students build literacy skills as well as improve listening, writing, and vocabulary competencies. In many shared or independent reading situations, audiobooks offer support to reluctant and struggling readers, special-needs students, and English-language learners. They are also embraced by voracious readers.…

Although basic literacy will continue to be necessary for survival, mass communications and information technology are bringing about an inevitable and lamentable decline in reading for pleasure and in the love of literature for its own sake. (TE)

A free reading program in which learning disabled adolescents select from a variety of high interest-low vocabulary materials can help motivate students to read. Students follow up the reading period by writing in a journal which the teacher reads and responds to. (CL)

Reprints a classic article published in this journal in 1970. Considers the interplay between interest, motivation, and self direction on the one hand, and the reading levels concept on the other hand. Warns that the concept of reading levels is often focused on errors, and that this tends to distort perceptions with regard to the primary goal of…

Two experiments investigated the effect of choice on cognitive and affective engagement during reading. Both experiments compared college students who either selected what they read or were assigned the same story without being allowed to choose. Discusses results and the need for a more explicit theory of choice. (Author/GCP)

Compares second grade and fifth grade students' recreational reading levels (when students self-select library books for recreation reading) in relation to independent, instructional, and frustration levels as determined with an informal reading inventory. Concludes that recreational reading levels should not be viewed as synonymous with…

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)

This study collected data via a three-page questionnaire administered to active readers 8 to 12 years old and half-hour taped interviews. Questionnaire findings (general information, interests, recent reading, information network), interview findings (book experience, reading taste, libraries, help in reading material selection, lists, reviews,…