Middle school students are not reading for pleasure as frequently as they formally have, due to the influx of video games, cell phones, MP3 players, and other electronic device. This is not even to mention the common stresses of the average middle school student. Current research on reading motivation finds that as children move from upper…

The author replicated and extended a study by Flowerday, Schraw, & Stevens (2004) that examined the effects of choice, topic interest, and situational interest on reading engagement, attitude, and learning in college-age students. The study was replicated using fourth and fifth graders as subjects. The study was extended to examine the effects of…

Audiobooks are excellent tools to help students build literacy skills as well as improve listening, writing, and vocabulary competencies. In many shared or independent reading situations, audiobooks offer support to reluctant and struggling readers, special-needs students, and English-language learners. They are also embraced by voracious readers.…

In this article, the author states that as educators and politicians across the country continue to scratch their heads in dismay at how male secondary students seem to be lagging behind in reading, it is useful to look beyond all of the genetic, physiological, and even sociological theories so often proffered by breathless experts. Anyone who…

Within the context of the increasing attention to reading in educational contexts around the globe, this study uses a semistructured interview to explore 93 Jordanian preservice teachers' perceptions of instructional practices for developing young children's interest in reading. The participants reported on 7 major teacher practices they perceive…

Reading logs have become a practice in many elementary schools. Although lack of autonomy undermines intrinsic motivation (Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973), no study has examined the effect of logs. Second and third-grade students (N = 112) were assigned either a mandatory or voluntary log and surveyed about their motivation to read at…

Based on more than twenty years' experience working to get boys interested in reading, the author now offers his first readers' advisory volume. With an emphasis on nonfiction and the boy-friendly categories of genre fiction, the work offers a wealth of material including: (1) Suggestions for how to booktalk one-on-one as well as in large groups;…

A challenge facing high school educators is that which includes motivating students to learn, helping students engage in their learning, and providing adolescents the tools that they can use in comprehending the many forms of texts that are presented to them. Many students have access to libraries and technologies yet they do not avail themselves…

Previous research has indicated that there is no relationship between traditional homework completion and academic achievement among elementary grade students. Yet, elementary school teachers continue to utilize this practice. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between nontraditional, differentiated reading…

This study examined if, by providing caregivers with a workshop regarding effective storybook reading coupled with the receipt of storybooks, Pre-Kindergarten students' emergent literacy development would significantly increase. Pre-Kindergarten children attending two Head Start centers in the Southeastern U.S. participated in the study. Twelve…

This qualitative inquiry explored the personal reading interests of 42 10th-grade students as they selected and began reading a novel. The study's goal was to inform those interested in supporting students' reading interests of what students from one rural school could and could not verbalize about their personal reading interests. The…

Using emergent motivation theory, this study analyzes the relationships between high school students' perceptions of their reading skills, task challenge, and personal control over assigned reading activities and their reading engagement (i.e., interest, enjoyment, and concentration) during science instruction. The study also examines how…

This study investigated the effects of dialogic parent-child reading in English on 51 Hong Kong kindergarteners learning English as a second language. Children were pre-tested on nonverbal IQ, reading interest and receptive vocabulary, word reading and phonological awareness in both Chinese and English. They were then assigned randomly to one of…

Ironically, adults control most of the world of children's literature: adults write the books; adults choose which books to publish; adults review the books, adults bestow the awards on books and adults purchase the books for bookstores, libraries, and their children. In this paradigm of adult control, children's opinions are often overlooked. The…

As teachers, our most important mission is to turn our students into readers. It sounds so simple, but it's hard work, and we're all on a deadline. Kittle describes a class in which her own expectations that students would become readers combined with a few impassioned strategies succeeded ... at least with a young man named Alan.