An analysis of student tastes in pleasure reading reveals that students in the 1970's are seeking new perspectives in their quest for personal identity. (Author/PF)

Readers of "The Journal of School Health" expressed a preference for more practice-oriented articles, special editions, and more articles on recent legislation. (JD)

Explains the benefits of encouraging teenagers to read plays and provides an annotated bibliography of plays with young adult main characters. Reasons for their appeal to teenagers include themes involving strong central conflict, the consequences of making choices, and the universal conflict of generational value systems. (EAM)

Advances in technology have caused a major shift in how students spend their time and challenged curriculum development to maintain interest and focus in the classroom. Implications are most profound in issues related to literacy due to a lack of experience and interest in reading. This article explores this issue and how it relates to teaching…

This study addresses concerns about boys' underperformance on literacy tasks compared to girls, by investigating male and females students' responses to narrative texts. Participants were 142 Grade 9 and 10 students. Achievement orientations, including goals, self-efficacy, and self-handicapping, were measured and approach and avoidance factors…

Research provides evidence that fathers can promote the development of their children's literacy skills, including reading books to them that are appropriate, engaging their children in discussions about books they read, recording in a notebook the books the children have read and encouraging their children to read more books. This review presents…

This study was an attempt to integrate motivation into reading comprehension, with active knowledge construction as a linkage. The study examined two motivational constructs, need for cognition and reader's beliefs, in terms of their role in text comprehension and interest development. The results of the study provided empirical evidence for the…

The development of phonological awareness (PA) before school age was modeled in association with the development of vocabulary and letter knowledge, home literacy environment (HLE), children's reading interest, and beginning reading skill in children with and without familial risk of dyslexia. A total of 186 children were followed from birth to…

Given the choice of reading or not reading books related to favorite TV programs, pupils showed they would read when their interests were engaged. (JH)

The Presidential proclamation proclaiming 1987 the "Year of the Reader" is presented in full followed by suggestions to help parents and teachers increase students motivation to read. (DB)

Literary reading is in dramatic decline, with fewer than half of American adults now reading literature, according to a July 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The survey "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America" reports drops in all groups studied, with the steepest rate of decline--28…

A reading specialist tells two young people what reading means to him. (RB)

In direct replication of a previous study investigating newspaper readership and uses-and-gratifications statements, this study interviewed a parallel random sample from the same market as the initial study using the same questions. A telephone survey of 557 adults was conducted by trained undergraduates enrolled in an advanced research methods…

Analysis of the relationship of ten characteristics to item readership revealed that page number and length of story were major determinants. (KS)