Despite the value of reading, research documents declining reading rates among American adolescents - a decline that exacerbates student dropout rates and academic performance. As a high school English teacher in a public, regional, suburban school, increasing the number of students who deeply read the assigned texts for class has been a…

This study explores the pedagogical effectiveness of assignments developed for a first-year composition course to encourage reflexive reading habits that can aid students in the writing process. Students in this course were asked to articulate the connections they found between multimodal texts of their own choosing and texts assigned by their…

This study compared learner perspectives regarding using PCs and smartphones as learning devices. A total of 167 Korean university students completed online assignments designed to maximize interaction with these devices. The assignments required students to submit their responses regarding assigned reading passages for a semester. Then they…

This article explores students' perceptions of inductive and deductive methods of teaching reading in Finnish and Hungarian in a higher education setting. A guided inductive discovery method of reading involves independent work and minimum vocabulary and grammar explanation before the reading assignment is given. A deductive pre-taught method…

This study investigated perceptions of a class of 20 first-year Japanese college students on peer questioning in cooperative reading activities. After the instructor gave an hour of interactive explanations of the reading, in which students were encouraged to interact actively with the instructor in interpreting the reading material, students were…

In the early elementary years, teachers generally pay attention to the act of reading--to the appropriate skill level and pace. But as students move on in the educational system and get to an age when teachers expect them to read on their own, the author suspects teachers pay less and less attention to this problem of pace. When they push students…

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…

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…

Many college courses have historically been associated with large amounts of reading. For example, many biology courses required students to read trade books such as Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" (Carson, 1962), or James Watson's "The Double Helix" (Watson, 1980), but now most instructors elect to focus students' reading on course textbooks and…

Examines what motivates students to read by looking at four literacy personalities. Explores readers' beliefs, readers' reasons and purposes, and readers' affective reactions. Proposes that self-efficacy is important at the beginning of a literacy event. Provides some practical ideas for classroom teachers to discover students' literacy…

Describes an eighth grade reading program that includes a requirement to read a diary. A questionnaire to determine students' favorite diaries and feelings about the genre is described, activities for students to try after reading a diary are suggested, and an annotated bibliography with 10 fiction and 10 nonfiction books is included. (LRW)

Presents a study of students in Australia, Canada, and England and examines grade nine students' written responses to writing over a two year period and their opinions of the books they read. Suggests that for students of that age, creative written responses to writing are the most imaginative. (JC)