Reading motivation is a fundamental basis for reading behavior and performance. For learners, interest is an exceedingly important component of reading motivation. Prior research has shown that students' text-based interest varies significantly between texts. However, it is still unclear why one text elicits greater interest over another.…

While previous research has provided insights into vocabulary learning through extensive reading, the differential effects of word frequency and word class on active form and passive meaning word recognition remain less understood. By evaluating learners' post-test performance in active form recognition and passive meaning recognition, this study…

This research explored ways in which educators can provide learners with differentiated instruction through student choice that provides engagement to positively interact with a student's reading identity. Throughout their learning journey, learners may have both positive and negative experiences with reading that directly affect their reading…

Helping students engage with complex texts has been a longstanding challenge, though teachers have received little guidance about practices that help students in engaging with texts. This paper provides a range of empirical evidence about a tool designed to provide formative insight into text-focused teaching, which we used to reliably score more…

The author and Karin Perry conducted surveys with educators for the past five years asking them about their reading habits and preferences. To date, they have more than 2500 responses. They paint a picture that all is not well on the teacher front. This article presents a few observations from the data. On average, educators report reading one to…

Learning to read is an expectation rather than an exception in society today. Despite this, some children experience reading difficulties. The purpose of this article is to review recent and seminal research on reading difficulties through the lenses of three perspectives: cognitive, social and cultural and interactive. The three perspectives are…

Research literature concerning gifted male readers relies primarily on more extensive bodies of work regarding gifted males and male readers. Studied as a whole, the two halves portray a worrisome state of affairs for gifted male readers, who lag behind their female counterparts in the same patterns found across the ability spectrum. This literacy…

The author examines the rise in popularity of graphic novels, the sales of which have steadily increased as their influence expands into adolescent culture. This article also includes an overview of current research results supporting the use of graphic novels within the classroom and school library; graphic novels support English-language…

The controversy over the effectiveness of various emphases in the teaching of reading--phonetic, look-say, decoding, electic-- is unlikely to end. This article, which analyzes reactions to an important 1967 book, provides a useful summary of the reading debate today. (Author)

The "Little Books" are a set of books designed for interactive book reading between parents and children or teachers and students. The books use thematic topics familiar to children. They are written with high-frequency words and use simple phrases and sentences. They also have strong links between illustrations and text. One study of…

A study examined the roles of reading in a community by describing the reading activities of individuals and demographic subgroups of individuals. After the preliminary, trial phase to determine the feasibility of the survey, 109 adult wage earners from 4 occupation groups, in a community of 6,000 households, responded to an inventory designed to…

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…

THE CHILD'S ABILITY TO PERCEIVE THE DIFFICULTY OF READING MATERIALS WAS ASSESSED. A STRATIFIED RANDOM SAMPLE OF 60 FIFTH GRADERS IN MASSACHUSETTS WITH A MEAN IQ OF 115 SERVED AS SUBJECTS. MATERIALS WERE 32 SHORT, GRADED READING SELECTIONS IN 8 INTEREST CATEGORIES AND A COMPREHENSION TEST. SELECTIONS WERE AT VARIOUS LEVELS OF READABILITY.…

In the first manuscript, preference and interest studies are examined for the purpose of determining the issues involved in guiding educational professionals in the selection of books for free reading in the classroom and the library. Studies which examined books that children actually read rather than studies investigating topics children might…

The assumption that book title choices can be used for identification of pupil interests is supported. (RB)