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The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of each of the variables of age, sex, reading -achievement, intelligence, and reading attitude to the preferred reading interests of students in grades four, five, and six.The following information and resources were available for each subject in this study: 1. Age2. Sex3. A reading achievement score4. An intelligence quotient5. A parent consent formThe population of this study consisted of two hundred sixty-nine (269) students in grades four, five, and six from the Muncie Community School Corporation. All students completed the Readinq Interest Survey, and seventy (70) of these students were interviewed utilizing the Reading Interest Student Interview Guide.The Reading Interest Survey consisted of two sections. The first section contained thirty-nine (39) questions describing books in different categories, while the second section consisted of fifteen (15) statements about reading. For the first section the students were asked to select one of the following choices to indicate their feelings about reading a book like each one described: "very much," "some," "little," or "not at all." For the second section the students were asked to select one of the following choices to indicate their feelings about each statement concerning reading: "strongly agree," "agree," "undecided," "disagree," or "strongly disagree."The Reading Interest Student Interview Guide was designed to cover the same areas of interest included in the Readinq Interest Survey. Also, other types of questions were included to find out more about students' attitudes toward reading. An attempt was made to put the students at ease through discussion of their general interests at the beginning of the interview sessions. They were told there were no right or wrong answers but that their judgments were needed. As the students responded, their comments were recorded so important information could be retained.At the conclusion of the study, the data collected from the Reading Interest Survey were examined. Analysis of variance was used to test the data. Pertinent information gathered from student interviews was reported.The identification of variables indicating the preferred reading interests in the two subsets of books about people and books about science used in the Reading Interest Survey is reviewed as follows:1. For books about people the most interest was shown by boys, age twelve; students with above average intelligence quotients, high reading achievement scores, and average reading attitude scores.2. For books about science the most interest was shown by girls, age twelve; students with above average intelligence quotients, high reading achievement scores, and average reading attitude scores.3. For books about people the least interest was shown by girls, age nine; students with below average intelligence quotients, low reading achievement scores, and fair reading attitude scores.4. For books about science the least interest was shown by boys, age thirteen; students with below average intelligence quotients, low reading achievement scores, and fair reading attitude scores.The variables ranked according to the degree of relationship to the preferred reading interests of the students are indicated below with the first variable indicating the most relationship and the last representing the least:1. Sex2. Age3. Intelligence4. Reading attitude5. Reading achievementIn the interviews most students reported having read books within the week and having a variety of reading interests including books about adventure, animals, people, sports, humor and science.

This study examines the influence of home, classroom and book-reading conditions on emergent and early readers' developing literacy abilities. The study, done with 60 grade 1 children from the inner-city and more affluent areas of Montreal uses complex multivariate designs to assess how these three conditions influence children's developing literacy abilities. Results indicate that variations in the home environment and children's interactions with print have a significant effect on book and code knowledge and print awareness before school instruction. The combined effect of the classroom and home environments have a significant influence on print awareness and reading fluency. After 4 months of instruction children improve significantly in book and code knowledge, print awareness, accuracy and fluency. Across classrooms, children differ in print awareness, fluency and word-reading accuracy. Assisted and unassisted reading conditions with an unfamiliar, patterned book indicate that use of strategies changes as a function of time and assistance given.

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Prior research has concerned the school as a cultural system and the early development of children's concepts about reading and about print. This descriptive research study explored concepts which bridged these two areas by investigating the defining, categorizing and labeling of the cognitive domain of books by sixth-grade children. The specific purpose of this study was to identify the nature of the concept of "book," the categories applied to the cognitive domain of books, the labels subsumed under these categories, and the attributes of these categories. It was assumed that books comprised a cognitive domain for sixth-grade children and that this cognitive domain was accessed via the vocabulary employed to categorize and label it. The data were elicited by an interview schedule which included questions concerning words associated with the term "book," criteria for selecting books, important features of and similarities among books, explanations of the concept of "book," and the various kinds of books known to each respondent. Additional data, relative to the hierarchical organizations of the kinds of books named by the subjects, were elicited by a card sort procedure; subjects grouped and regrouped cards with the kinds of books elcited by the interview schedule until all of the cards were in one group. Two samples of upper middle class sixth-grade children, who had not yet entered the seventh grade, were the subjects (N = 23 and N = 18, respectively). One sample completed the interview schedule and the card sort procedure; the other cross-validating sample completed the card sort procedure only. In addition to myriad findings, the following were the most appropriate generalizations from findings. (1) Sixth-grade children view reading as an active and responsive process, in which the reader engages in a dialog with the author which begins with reader expectancies and purposes. (2) Although sixth-grade children participate in the same culture, the school, it cannot be inferred that they share similar cognitive maps for the domain of books. Their categorizing, defining and labeling of books do not reflect a shared meaning system. Rather, quite individualistic systems of rules for the organization of this domain are apparent. Studies of children's reading interests may reflect general predispositions of particular groups, rather than strong preferences. (3) The definitions of books formulated by sixth-grade children are descriptive rather than generic or synonomous in character. (4) Sixth-grade children have salient individual taxonomies of the cognitive domain of books. However, it appears that they do not have one, shared, salient folk taxonomy of the cognitive domain of books. The only salient, shared categories of books were fiction, non-fiction and mystery, along with their subsumed labels. (5) The methodology of ethnoscience demonstrates potential for the study of readers and reading in cultural contexts. One implication for reading instruction arising from the findings of this study is the following: Because sixth-grade children categorize the cognitive domain of books in quite an individualistic manner, it is suggested that the selection and recommendation of reading material should be guided by a child's individual interests rather than by lists generated by reading interests research.

Bibliography: leaves 310-320. / One of the main hypotheses under scrutiny is that a child's responses to a children's book are likely to be influenced to a significant degree by his stage of cognitive development. A second major premise is that domains of human development and existence other than the cognitive (such as the emotional, physical and social) will also play a role in such responses. The two main components of the dissertation are: (a) a literature survey (Section B, Ch. 2 - 6, Section C, Ch. 7 - 8); and (b) an empirical study (Section D, Ch. 9 - 10). The literature survey comprises two fields, viz (a) child development theories, including those of cognitive development, with particular reference to the writings of Piaget; and (b) aspects of children's literature in general, as well as an analysis of the book selected for the empirical study, viz Sendak's Where the wild things are. An outline of the methodology of the empirical study precedes the analysis of the data obtained in a study of the responses of 104 subjects, selected by random sampling at a Cape Town public library during afternoons over a four-week period in March 1984. The subjects ranged in age from 7 to 12 years, i.e., the Piagetian period of concrete and formal operations respectively. Data were collected by the completion of an interview schedule or a questionnaire, identical in wording to the interview schedule. The method of data-collection depended upon the reading and writing ability or the preference of the subject. Time allowed for the reading of the book by the subject (or by the researcher on behalf of the subject) and for the answering of the questions was unlimited. Critics' views upon controversial aspects of the book, discussed in the literature survey, formed the basis of the eleven questions, five of which were dichotomous and six of which were open. The aspects were: (a) the possibility that there are fear-inducing elements in the book; (b) the effect upon the child of the handling of the anger of Max, the protagonist, by the author-artist; (c) the realisation by the child reader that Max's mother loves her son; and (d) the awareness on the part of the child of the distinction between fantasy and reality. The subjects were divided into two groups, viz those in the period of concrete operations (7 to 10 years) and those in the period of formal operations (11 to 12 years). Responses (with the exception of those to the last question, which required literature appreciation responses) were classified with reference to the cognitive, emotional, physical and social domains to yield quantitative and qualitative results. These results substantiate the main hypotheses. It was also found that, although some respondents experienced fear or anger during exposure to Where the wild things are, the impact of these negative emotions could be offset by an awareness on the part of the majority of the subjects of the love directed at Max by his mother. The majority of subjects were able to distinguish between the fantasy world and the reality of Max's home.

The purpose of this study was to compare the readability levels of the recreational reading books children selected to read with the reading levels of the children established by Powell's (1992) criteria for the Informal Reading Inventory. Using Fry's Readability Graph, a second purpose of this study was to compare the reading levels of the books the children chose and read with the reading levels of the books the children chose and did not read. Five hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance.Hypotheses I-IV were tested using a t-test for paired samples to determine if there was any particular reading level from which children tended to choose their recreational reading books.The analyses did not allow rejection of Hypotheses I and II. There were no significant relationships found between the reading levels independent and developmental, and the levels of recreational reading books children chose from their school library.The analyses did allow rejection of Hypotheses III and IV. The reading levels emergent and frustration proved to be statistically significantly different from the children's recreational book levels.Hypothesis V was tested using the Pearson correlation coefficient to determine the relationship between the reading levels of the recreational reading books the children chose and read and the reading levels of the books the children chose and did not read.The analysis failed to reject Hypothesis V. There was no significant relationship between the reading levels of the books the children chose and read and the reading levels of the books the children did not read. Although this hypothesis did not prove to be statistically significant, the following tendency was observed: the easier the readability of the book, the more likely it was to have been read.The findings of this study indicate fourth grade students chose books from their school library on all their reading levels. However, on the average students chose books between their independent and developmental reading levels. / Department of Elementary Education