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COPYRIGHT 2004 International Reading Association Inc.
Certainly, learning to read is valued by many cultures, and the ability to read is regarded as the most fundamental goal of education. However, though most children in the United States do learn to read, many leave school unable to read beyond the most basic functional level. The degree to which schools are effective purveyors of reading education and the methods used to teach reading have become subjects of controversy. However, factors that foster a child's love of reading have, for the most part, been left out of the debate.
Many studies of the early stages of reading acquisition have shown that the home environment and support from a parent or other adult may be essential to encouraging literacy development (Adoni, 1995; Bissex, 1980; Bloom, 1970, 1973; Cambourne, 1995; Clark, 1984; Durkin, 1966; Fader, 1983; Forester, 1986; Hall & Moats, 2000; Harste, Burke, & Woodward, 1982; Morrow, 1983; Neuman, 1980, 1986; Taylor, 1983; Teale, 1984; Yaden, 1986). Although such studies largely focused on the acquisition of reading skills, more recently McKenna, Kear, and Ellsworth (1995) surveyed children's attitudes toward reading and concluded that children's views of recreational and academic reading are tied to reading ability as well as to community norms and beliefs. Their work documented a change in children's attitudes toward reading that typically evolves from enthusiasm to comparative indifference by the end of the elementary school years. A meta-analysis of research on reading (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) listed no recent studies that address the love of reading or its relation to reading achievement.
The preponderance of research findings suggest that few children, skilled readers or not, choose to devote their leisure time to reading. Surveys of schoolchildren's reading practices (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985; Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding, 1988; Himmelweit & Swift, 1976; Lyness, 1952; Moffitt & Wartella, 1992; Neuman, 1980, 1986, 1995) have shown that young people across all age groups devote very little time to recreational reading, and this has been true since the 1940s. While studies that survey the reading practices, leisure time use, and academic achievement of older children and teens (Anderson et al., 1988; Greaney & Hegarty, 1987; Greaney & Neuman, 1983; Lewis & Teale, 1980; Long & Henderson, 1973; Neuman, 1981, 1986, 1995) revealed patterns of behavior and suggested that children's perceptions about reading influenced this behavior (Neuman, 1995), they did not explain the genesis of attitudes about reading. Teens spend even less time reading than younger children (Moje, Young, Readence, & Moore, 2000), despite the fact that they also spend less time watching television. Kubey and Csikzentmihalyi (1990) reported that "the average American teenager watches more than 21 hours of TV each week but devotes only 5.6 hours a week to homework and a mere 1.8 hours to pleasure reading" (p. 24). Nevertheless, several investigators (Greaney, 1980; Neuman, 1986, 1995; Searls, Mead, & Ward, 1985) have failed to find a significant relationship between time spent reading and time spent watching television for any age group.
Nell's research into the psychology of reading for pleasure (1988) documented factors that contribute to a book's readability and made a significant contribution to our understanding of how reading can be emotionally satisfying. Additionally, Moore, Bean, Birdyshaw, and Rycik (1999) posited that "vicariously stepping into text worlds can nourish teens' emotions and psyches as well as their intellects" (p. 102). However, little in the research literature on reading addresses the factors that lead some young people to embrace the satisfactions afforded by recreational reading. This is true despite the fact that a recent position paper on teen literacy (Moore et al., 1999) noted that a desire to read is an important cornerstone of adolescents' literacy achievement.
Smith (1988) has argued that we learn to read, and become literate in the process, simply by reading. In The Power of Reading (1993), Krashen explored research findings that supported Smith's idea and the role reading for pleasure plays in a child's literacy development. Krashen stated that
the relationship between reported free voluntary reading and literacy development is not always large, but it is remarkably consistent. Nearly every study that has examined this relationship has found a correlation, and it is present even when different tests, different methods of probing reading habits, and different definitions of free reading are used. (p. 7)
Krashen concluded that children who frequently read for pleasure
will become adequate readers, acquire a large vocabulary, develop the ability to understand and use complex grammatical constructions, develop a good writing style, and become good (but not necessarily perfect) spellers. Although free voluntary reading alone will not ensure attainment of the highest levels of literacy, it will at least ensure an acceptable level. (p. 84)
Those who do not develop the habit of reading for pleasure may have "a very difficult time reading and writing at a level high enough to deal with the demands of today's world" (p. x). With this view in mind, we sought to determine factors that contribute to and support a child's learning to love to read.
Procedure
We wished to identify older children and teens for whom reading extended texts is a significant, pleasurable, recreational activity and consistent part of daily life, hereafter identified as Readers, as well as a comparable group who seldom or never choose to read for pleasure, hereafter called Not-readers. (We chose this term, rather than Nonreaders, in order to avoid the inaccurate implication that children and teens in this group lack reading skills.) To make these identifications, we designed, pilot-tested, and distributed questionnaires to a cross-section of sixth-grade students attending a suburban middle school outside a large northeastern U.S. city and to ninth-grade students in the same school district. The questionnaire was administered by classroom teachers who followed a specific set of instructions we provided.
The students who completed the questionnaire represented the available spectrum of academic achievement, including remedial and honors students. The participants were heterogeneously grouped sixth-grade students in four core (English/social studies) classes (n = 65), and ninth-grade students in five homogeneously grouped English classes (n = 86), including one remedial and one honors group. A total of 151 students responded to the written questionnaire. A numerical identification system was used to protect the anonymity of all students. The language spoken at home, reading ability, and level of academic achievement were not controlled.
The questionnaire--presented as a survey of leisure time use by students--included, in addition to basic demographic information, a broad range of questions in the following categories:
1. Activities engaged in outside of school (students were asked to estimate time per day spent at activities such as sports, music lessons, leisure activities, media use, reading for pleasure, homework, and chores).
2. Self-perceptions and attitudes (likes and dislikes, self-description).
3. Reading practices and materials (novels, informational books, magazines; reading compared with other leisure activities; reading practices of family members and friends; availability of reading materials in the home).
We included this broad range of items to mask our specific objective and to help us place reading activities in the context of students' lives.
Embedded within the 10-page questionnaire was a seven-item Literacy Index, which was designed to identify both Readers and Not-readers. On the basis of interviews conducted as part of a pilot...
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