Emotional shifts in stories are assumed to contribute to narrative persuasion by enhancing engagement with the story. This effect might depend on the congruency of audiences' emotional experience to the emotions implied by the story. In two experiments with well-controlled story manipulations, we compared the persuasive effect of stories with…

This article inquires into what sort of socioemotional education and conviviality are produced when pleasurable literary reading is encouraged in neoliberal cultures. We critically explore the celebration of reading for socioemotional education as it is produced in official government documents distributed to schools in Chile. Assisted by Sara…

In this article, I use the metaphor that readers journey to narrative worlds to review research that has spanned my career. In the first section, I consider the processes that enable readers to undertake these journeys as well as the processes that allow them to participate in the narrative worlds once they have arrived. In the second section, I…

When two people read the same story, they might both end up liking it very much. However, this does not necessarily mean that their reasons for liking it were identical. We therefore ask what factors contribute to "liking" a story, and--most importantly--how people vary in this respect. We found that readers like stories because they…

This quasi-experimental study examined readers' perceptions of content-evaluative metadiscourse--linguistic and rhetorical signals that indicate an author's willingness (or lack thereof) to "own" the claims discussed in a text. Specific elements investigated in the study included hedging and boosting (markers of doubt or certainty),…

Teachers' literacy identities inform how they teach reading. Only about half, however, view themselves as enthusiastic readers, and up to 40% have negative attitudes toward reading. The repercussions are great: not only do teachers who are unenthusiastic about reading produce uninspired students, but they also use fewer research-based reading…

The state of reading to meet a person's needs develops over time, and this habit becomes a part of the person's life. In this study, a focus group interview was the preferred method of qualitative research. High-level readers who read more than 30 books a year were included in the study. Even though they read about 30 to 100 books a year, they…

This study explores the relationship between the books students select for independent reading and their motivation to read. Instructional recommendations based on key findings are presented. To gather data, study participants completed the Motivation to Read Profile-Revised. They also shared information about the books they had selected for…

Individuals who self-identify as poor readers can have a range of reading experiences, practices, and abilities. The author examined how adolescents and adults who self-identified as poor readers (a) found enjoyment in reading an interactive fiction app, (b) why they chose to engage with a text-based app, and (c) if their involvement with the app…

The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to explore how pre-service elementary teacher education students form their reader identity, specifically how their reading identity is socially constructed by school literacy contexts and relationships. Social constructionism provided a theoretical framework for investigating how pre-service…

Working through four key tenets of Deleuze-Guattarian theory, the authors describe how contemporary affect theory offers a radically different perspective on reading. Asking how we can conceptualize reading differently if we conceptualize affect differently, we argue that possible meanings of reading or experiences of reading must be considered…

Poet and essayist Gary Soto considers the senses while reading and the purpose of maintaining a reading life. According to the author, it's the pleasure of a story, and the intimacy of getting to know the characters well enough to exercise tenderness (or dislike) toward them. It's to weigh but not judge the behavior of characters, who are like…

In this study, the authors examined how parents, preservice teachers, and teens responded to their reading of one controversial young adult novel. Analyzing the discourse of participants through the lens of positioning theory, the authors found that student readers approached the book as a story, examining its various literary elements. Youths…

The present study was based on the Turkish sample in PISA 2009 and PISA 2018. To investigate the effect of both gender and economic, social and cultural status index on reading literacy, the causal mediation effect was utilized in order to test the mediating role of the following variables: enjoyment of reading, the metacognitive strategy of…

Reading is an important skill for work success and navigating the world today. However, the number of U.S. readers is on the decline. Between 2014 and 2018, it is estimated that approximately 720,000 Deaf readers stopped reading. When asked why, many said they didn't really enjoy reading. Such individuals are becoming what are called reluctant…