Drawing upon the results of two nationally representative surveys, this report sums up 10 broad K-12 trends in 10 accompanying charts. The surveys were conducted as educators continued to grapple with the turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the debates that sometimes draw education policies into the culture wars surrounding social and…

This report outlines findings from the National Literacy Trust's tenth Annual Literacy Survey relating to children and young people's reading in 2020, in addition to findings from the Trust's survey of children and young people's reading during the COVID-19 lockdown. 58,346 children and young people aged 9 to 18 in the UK took part in the Annual…

Audiobooks have become increasingly popular in the digital age: streaming and subscription services, such as Audible and Spotify, have made audio stories available to a wide commercial audience, while apps like Libby and BorrowBox facilitate 'borrowing' of audiobooks from library services. With access easier and more widespread than ever, it is…

This report outlines findings from the National Literacy Trust's tenth Annual Literacy Survey relating to children and young people's reading in 2020, in addition to findings from the Trust's survey of children and young people's reading during the COVID-19 lockdown. 58,346 children and young people aged 9 to 18 in the UK took part in the Annual…

Leisure reading is important for personality development and mental growth of children. Reading habits developed during early childhood are likely to continue rest of the life. The main purpose of this study was to investigate leisure reading habits and preferences of young children in Singapore. A questionnaire was used for data collection and…

Two studies examined inferences drawn about the protagonist's emotional state in movies (Study 1) or audiobooks (Study 2). Children aged 5, 8, and 10 years old and adults took part. Participants saw or heard 20 movie scenes or sections of audiobooks taken or adapted from the TV show Lassie. An online measure of emotional inference was designed…

In an exploration of methods to advance language acquisition without the inconvenience of participating in an immersion option, the authors discovered research on Free Voluntary Reading (FVR). FVR has made a recent resurgence, especially in the context of language acquisition. Krashen (2004) proposes FVR as the answer to building language…

Literacy is regarded as a fundamental skill for people to communicate successfully in all areas of life. In the light of the poor performance of learners, an investigation concerning reading is imperative to enhance literacy in South Africa. This study explores the use of tablets to enhance English reading among learners in Grade 5 from selected…

Several decades of research have established that time spent reading has a positive impact on the cognitive development and academic success of school-aged children and adolescents. Yet, reading among adolescents has been in decline in recent years while engagement with audiobooks has increased. Professionals in librarianship, children's…

For over two decades, the field of children's literature has been incorporating more digital technologies into publication of and access to texts. From early computer and CD-ROM adaptations of print picturebooks to the extensive visual and aural interactivity of the newest literature apps, what and how children read has changed significantly in…

Fluency in L2 reading often seems a distant goal, and pleasure in the experience of L2 reading even more unattainable. This study investigated comparative EFL reading projects for university-age learners, using graded literature at one university and an authentic memoir at a second. The study explored whether integrating listening to audiobooks…

This article is based on a case study I presented at the elearning Symposium 2014 and focuses on an undergraduate project which had received the Teaching Enhancement and Student Success Fund at the University of Manchester two years before. The project was conceived as an outreach activity complementing the final year core language classes and…

It has been 20 years since the Rainbow Reading programme was developed and trialled by its New Zealand creator, Meryl-Lynn Pluck. Rainbow Reading is an audio-facilitated reading programme, and is based on the method of assisted repeated reading. The programme is designed to provide older students reading below their chronological age with the…

Given that research has shown that audiobooks impact literacy for youth in a number of ways, and since school librarians typically serve as gatekeepers of audiobook collections in school libraries, this study examined the attitudes of school librarians in Texas toward audiobooks. Using a multiliteracies framework to guide this research, this study…

This article presents the Notable Children's Videos, Recordings, and Interactive Software for Kids lists which are compiled annually by committees of the Association for Library Service to children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). These lists were released in January 2011 at the ALA Midwinter meeting in San Diego,…