A descriptive study determined whether reading aloud to young children promoted literacy and enhanced their desire to read. Subjects, 20 second-grade children (aged 6 to 7 years) in Avenel, New Jersey, were exposed to read-aloud sessions on a daily basis for a 6-week period. During each week, a specific genre of books was read aloud daily. At the…

A study was conducted to assess the impact of heavier and lighter exposure to newspapers on students' readership of and attitudes toward newspapers and on their awareness of and interest in current events. Newspapers in six cities across the United States had students in grades 5 through 12 fill out attitude and information questionnaires at the…

Main characters were portrayed in nontraditional roles in stories presented to 4th, 7th, and 11th grade students. A total of 172 students read a set of four stories, each of which had two versions, one with a male main character and one with a female main character. Thus, the same stories were used to depict traditional and nontraditional sex…

A study was conducted to determine the relationship between the reading attitudes of seventh grade high achievers and their teachers' perceptions of those attitudes. The 178 students and 12 teachers in the study completed a reading attitudes survey, with the teachers responding as they believed a high achieving student would answer. When a t-test…

A study of 1,242 children in 20 fifth, sixth, and seventh grade classes in Richmond, British Columbia, was undertaken over a seven-month period to discover the effects of a sustained silent reading program (SSR) on the students. Ten classes and the four schools they were in participated in the SSR group and ten classes selected from five other…

Suggests ways students can benefit when elementary teachers combine reading instruction with art activities. (JC)

Discusses results of survey of senior high school student attitudes toward reading for pleasure and suggests ways in which librarians, working with students, teachers, and parents, can integrate pleasure reading into curriculum and home; i.e., provide appealing materials, recommended bibliographies, networks for sharing information about books,…

Reports on a survey of teachers in the American southeast showing that they attach great importance to fostering students' positive attitudes toward reading. Other findings, however, indicate that they spend little classroom time developing these attitudes. (FL)

In this study it was hypothesized that if a young reader repeatedly chooses a serial book for pleasure reading, then appreciation and ability to choose and recognize quality works will diminish. Four sixth-grade English classes recorded their independent reading choices for five months. Those who habitually read series books were chosen for the…

Reports that regular participation by groups of fifth- and sixth- grade students in a program of uninterrupted sustained silent reading was accompanied by improved performance on a measure of reading achievement over groups who did not participate in the program. Whether the program affected reading attitudes is not clear. (FL)

Identifies easily recognized and popular books possessing "biblio-power" (invisible influences) that might be used to develop positive attitudes and values about reading and writing. (HOD)

Examined the influence of CD-ROM storybooks on reading comprehension and attitudes toward reading of 37 matched pairs of third graders. Found that comprehension was higher after reading CD-ROM storybooks than print versions if measured by story retelling, but was no different if measured by open-ended questions. There were no differences in…

Investigates the reading genre preferences of 254 male and female high school students in Pennsylvania. Draws comparisons with similar research done 10 years earlier. Finds a substantial change in reading interests. Notes the top 10 areas of interest are adventure, horror, mysteries, humor, murder, love, fantasy, crime, sports, and movies. (RS)

Describes the author's first teaching year in an eighth-grade literature class in which the students had no interest in the topic. Introduces "authentic talk" to engage the students. Discusses how the students' interest in reading increased as they read and discussed favorite works of children's literature. (SG)

Describes the rationale, implementation, and evaluation of the Book Buddies Project, a school-university collaboration for providing meaningful and authentic written dialogs between school children and university students, which resulted in improved student attitudes toward literacy. (SR)