Reading motivation is a fundamental basis for reading behavior and performance. For learners, interest is an exceedingly important component of reading motivation. Prior research has shown that students' text-based interest varies significantly between texts. However, it is still unclear why one text elicits greater interest over another.…

Reading is an important skill for work success and navigating the world today. However, the number of U.S. readers is on the decline. Between 2014 and 2018, it is estimated that approximately 720,000 Deaf readers stopped reading. When asked why, many said they didn't really enjoy reading. Such individuals are becoming what are called reluctant…

Literature holds the potential to significantly influence the lives of readers, but what is the nature of this influence for very young readers? This study investigated the question: What are the relationships between beginning readers and their personal literature? A first grade class of 18 students individually assembled a collection of personal…

What is the hold of literature on a reader's imagination, on my imagination? I remember many hours spent with books in a kind of romantic entanglement, and heartful obsession, and joyful reverie. I certainly remember being lost with words, lost in enthusiastic abandonment. I loved the sounds of words, and the images they conjured, and the…

Every adult who reads to a child has seen what happens when a book speaks. For a time, the book becomes the child's beloved friend. It is asked for repeatedly and learned by heart. But books do more than speak to a child. Children use books to speak to adults. If one wants to understand a child's deepest emotions, take a look at the books they…

This study examined how global locus of control influences children's reading engagement or reading involvement and interest in stories. It is based on locus of control, interest, and dual information processing theories. One hundred and seventy students from schools in the northeastern United States, ages 9 to 12, participated. They completed a…

Readers' advisory (RA) librarians use appeal to translate between readers and books, to make connections between readers and myriad other title possibilities based on the effects of the story. Appeal addresses the elements of books that readers respond to, the features that "draw a reader into a book" and help shape a particular reading…

Suggests that the increasingly popular genre of informational storybooks can "turn students on" to independent learning from text. Notes that these storybooks, such as the Magic School Bus books, present and explain a nonfiction topic in a storybook format. Poses four questions as a framework for examining some of the key issues that…

Contributes to cultural-studies scholarship on ethnographic media studies by examining the reception of imported romance novels among women in postcolonial urban India. Shows that romance novels were found pleasurable because they were an extension of Indian women's childhood English-language reading, and they were viewed as resources to improve…

An important research paradigm applied to the study of adolescent resistance to reading--listening to student voice--has yielded rich information regarding adolescent literacy practices, adolescent agency, and adolescent identity as components of resistance to reading. Instructional perspectives of teachers and researchers also serve to shed light…

Examines the benefits of reader response by means of student letters to authors. Notes that students involved in response writing become more interested in reading, are more reflective individuals, and more responsible for monitoring and resolving their own questions. (SD)