Recreational reading is in a decline for upper elementary aged readers, and along with this decline comes consequent declines in students' ability to make meaning from what they read and their acquisition of different language forms, including the acquisition of new vocabulary words. However, one reading format is increasing in popularity: graphic…

The ability to read, the single most important skill students need for learning, has been on the decline across the nation while student interest in books has also waned. Yet, despite the flagging interest in, and proficiency with, reading, English Language Arts (ELA) instruction has remained largely unchanged especially in grades 6-12. The…

This study aims at exploring gender differences in text-type-specific reading competences via readers' gender-specific reading preferences. Women were expected to read more often for the sake of entertainment (entertainment preference), whereas men were expected to read more often to gain information (information preference). We further assumed…

While debate on declines in children's literacy is ongoing in Aotearoa New Zealand, very little attention in research and policy is paid to reading enjoyment and its capacity to support the reading development of children. Developed alongside a series of studies on children's reading for pleasure this article makes a theoretically informed…

Intensive reading and extensive reading (ER) are two activities that have distinct purposes and require different instructional setups. Whereas intensive reading focuses on reading skills that enable students to deconstruct text in order to find the main idea, supporting details, and discrete information, ER allows students to read for pleasure…

Learning an academic discipline requires at a fundamental level reading of knowledge that has been recorded, debated and developed in writing over time. Given the essential role of reading in shaping knowledge, there needs to be more emphasis on approaches that nurture an engaged reading practice. This article explores the role of instrumental,…

Does reading a lot lead to better reading skills, or does reading a lot follow from high initial reading skills? The authors present a longitudinal study of how much children choose to read and how well they decode and comprehend texts. This is the first study to examine the codevelopment of print exposure with both fluency and comprehension…

There are large gaps in reading skills by family income among school-aged children in the United States. Correlational evidence suggests that reading skills are strongly related to the amount of reading students do outside of school. Experimental evidence testing whether this relationship is causal is lacking. We report the results from a…

Book giveaway programs provide free books to families with infants to encourage caregivers to begin reading to their children during infancy. This meta-analysis of 44 studies retrieved from 43 articles tests the effects of three major book giveaway programs: Bookstart (n = 11), Reach Out and Read (n = 18), and Imagination Library (n = 15). Effect…

The ability to read relies upon not just decoding, but also comprehending text. Being a good comprehender requires strategic reading and implies the use of comprehension strategies. Research indicates that readers who are taught several reading comprehension strategies have better reading skills than those only taught a single strategy. One…

Whereas cognitive and linguistic factors for learning to read have been extensively studied, less is known about affective factors including children's attitudes toward reading. Studies primarily from English-speaking and Western countries show gradual declines in reading attitudes in elementary school (McKenna et al., Reading Research Quarterly…

Fostering children's engagement in regular recreational reading beyond independent skill acquisition is beneficial to promote continued literacy engagement. Regular recreational reading is associated with both literacy skill acquisition and maintenance across the life span. Children's perceptions of the importance and value of reading can…

Purpose: We investigated the roles of leisure reading and word reading ability in vocabulary and reading comprehension development in 598 adolescents at ages 10, 11, and 12 (285 girls, 313 boys). Method: Structural equation modeling was used to test whether word reading was associated with vocabulary and reading comprehension: a) directly; b)…

A number of studies have suggested that extensive reading can lead to gains in different language skills. Few studies on extensive reading have been conducted outside the East Asia classroom setting. This study investigated the impact of an extensive reading programme conducted over 12 weeks with 90- minutes group sessions 3 times a week involving…

Research into the effects of extensive reading (ER) in second language acquisition has surged over the past few decades. Many studies report several benefits that come from engaging in ER, including reading rate gains. However, these studies almost exclusively focus on English language learners and tend to be limited by their lack of control over…