Discusses a bulletin board that highlights authors' birthdays and children's birthdays for each month of the year, and related classroom activities that get students excited about authors and about reading. (SR)

This study examines the relationship between both first language (L1) and second language (L2) reading attitudes, and learners' performance in L2 extensive reading. Four reading attitude variables were identified (Comfort, Anxiety, Value, Self-perception), both in L1 and L2, according to learners' responses to a questionnaire. Results of analyses…

Evidence dating back to the 1930s and receiving increased attention today shows that boys tend to lag behind girls in reading achievement. The author asserts that we can help boys become thoughtful, accomplished readers, if we view their existing competencies, interests, and personal experiences as assets rather than as impediments to achievement.…

Discusses assumptions about students' attitudes toward reading, the nature of those attitudes, and techniques for measuring them. (FL)

Explores the implications of attitudes toward reading of both good and poor readers in relation to their performance scores. (DD)

Reports results of an extensive field test of a reading attitudes survey. Finds that students tend to demonstrate mildly favorable attitudes in grades 2-6, but these attitudes deteriorate to neutral to mildly unfavorable attitudes in the fifth and sixth grade. (RS)

Advocates using audiobooks in the secondary classroom, arguing that they can facilitate understanding of dialect and complex language, emphasize humor and drama, and provide the benefits of storytelling. Discusses values of audiobooks in classrooms, variety in audio presentations, uses of shortened versions, and use with special students. (SR)

Argues that the number one goal in teaching literature should be to create lifelong, reflective readers, and that the job of a novel at its highest level is to illuminate the human condition. Argues that good adolescent literature does all of these things, and does it in such a way that adolescents will ask for more. (SR)

Argues the field of education has not attended adequately to the literacy learning and development of adolescents; and that the future of adolescent and secondary literacy research is in research that examines the connections between the everyday discourses of adolescents and the academic discourses they navigate each day in school. (RS)

At its most fundamental level, like all instruction, comprehension instruction is composed of moment-to-moment interactions among students and between students and their teacher. Children's competence at making meaning from texts and their motivation to read are shaped by a variety of classroom influences, one of the most important of which may be…

The views of the learners are arguably the most important consideration in planning for classroom literacy instruction, yet they are often ignored by policy-makers and by teachers. In order to match the literacy curriculum to the learners, it is essential for teachers to consider the programmes they offer from the learners' points of view. This…

This study had two purposes. One was to investigate the effect of text format on underachieving first-year college students' self-efficacy for reading; the second was to compare self-efficacy ratings with subsequent reading comprehension. Seventy-six students in a university learning support services program at a large Northeastern university…

In this article, the author shares the reflections of second graders at PS 11, an elementary school in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, on their identities as readers and writers through a photo essay. It is through these two mediums that they are coming to know themselves as learners and as human beings. One example of student comments is, Billy…

Reports on a study in which elementary level students evaluated rewards commonly used to encourage recreational reading. Finds that the most popular rewards allow students more flexibility and independence. (MM)

Presents several letters written to one high school English teacher's students after they complained that they hated reading. The teacher wrote to the local newspaper, asking readers to write to his students about their experiences with books. The letters, written by a diverse group of people, present personal stories about the positive effects of…