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)

Interviews 195 older adults, finding that those who read for pleasure were less lonely than those who did not. Finds no association between loneliness scores and several other factors thought to have a relationship to loneliness. Finds, however, decreased loneliness strongly associated with whether the participant had a confidant. (SR)

Recommends many books for summer reading enjoyment, concentrating on historical and contemporary fiction. Different cultures clash in William T. Vollman's "Fathers and Crows" and John Demos's adventuresome "Unredeemed Captive." Other suggestions: "Snow Falling on Cedar Mountain" (David Gutterman) and "Foxfire" (Joyce Carol Oates). For professional…

Summer reading suggestions are offered for teachers and students. Brief descriptions and sources of 11 children's magazines are provided. (DB)

It was during the early 1990s that the author began to suspect that teenagers were reading less--and less deeply--than they had been 10 and certainly 20 years ago. He found this paradoxical, because it was during the 1990s that SAT scores seemed to soar along with the economy. Students talked about them constantly, like securities traders in a…

For a head start on getting great reading and writing materials this summer--just look in your mailbox. As the school year winds down and the end-of-year testing and report card frenzy nears, summer looms large. If you have the good fortune to be in a school that isn't year-round, and you aren't working on college credit or at a second job, just…

"Alabama Education News" is published monthly except for June, July, and December by the Alabama Department of Education. This publication, authorized by Section 16-2-4 of the "Code of Alabama", as recompiled in 1975, is a public service of the Alabama Department of Education designed to inform citizens and educators about…

This report contains the best national data available to provide a reliable and comprehensive overview of American reading today. While it incorporates some statistics from the National Endowment for the Arts' 2004 report, "Reading at Risk," this new study contains vastly more data from numerous sources. Although most of this information is…

The Chinese people have great regard for those who read widely, yet little is known of the extracurricular reading behaviors of Chinese students. This study drew on data from two national surveys to investigate the amount of time Taiwanese college students spend on extracurricular reading. Findings are interpreted in relation to prior research on…

This study examined the progress of Hayder, a high school student, in becoming a reader within an English language learner (ELL) reading program. The authors delve into the relationships between this young man's masculinity as a Yezidi Kurdish refugee, the reading instruction he received, his attempts to stay in school, and his successful literacy…

This article reports a project undertaken in a Caribbean high school among 17 students in a low stream Year 3 class of reluctant readers (mostly boys) who had been experiencing repeated failure. The project, aimed at promoting leisure reading among the adolescents, ran for 16 weeks. During this period, reading materials--mostly those in which the…

This paper explores how Scottish public library services have responded to providing a service to a virtually invisible minority group, i.e. lesbians who enjoy reading lesbian fiction. The evidence that provides the foundation for the results discussed in this paper was drawn from the following sources: a study of the 32 public library services in…

This paper reports a small-scale study of wider reading at Key Stage 3 in current English classrooms in secondary schools in the south of England. Six English teachers, three of whom were relatively new to teaching, were interviewed on what they thought about wider reading. The findings indicate that because of a lack of time and absence of demand…

The development of reading is connected to the development of several habits, habits which once developed, will remain. Some of the habits that will get children reading and instill the habit of reading are: (1) use a book mark; (2) allow kids to read the same book twice; (3) have a dictionary handy and explain its use; (4) have magazines,…

This study was done to see if readability levels printed on recreational reading books were as accurate as when the Fry formula and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level were applied to them. Three descriptive passages from each of 60 recreational reading books were analyzed using the Fry formula and the Flesch-Kincaid formula. The data was compared to…