The study derives from a belief, based on many researchers' writings, that wide and frequent book-reading aids the development of knowledge, emotional maturity and human sympathy, which are all essential attributes in a fragmented culture such as South Africa's. It is not accepted that conventional secondary-school literature-teaching in this country promotes a lifelong reading habit among the majority of pupils and a plea is made for the recognition of Reading as a curricular entity in its own right. The study suggests that, owing to a paucity of local research in this field, South African teachers and educational authorities are severely disadvantaged. If they are unable to offer advice based on a proper study of their pupils as readers, they run the risk of guiding many pupils' reading along paths that cannot promise satisfaction and fulfilment. Such stultifying of reading habits would contradict the aims of the present National Core Syllabuses for English (First Language). The thesis sets little store by the investigation of specific bookchoices, pointing out that the validity of such incidental findings, if gleaned from a latitudinal survey, is questionable. Instead, using the findings of questionnaires administered to nearly 2 800 pupils and their teachers, the thesis investigates the relationships between voluntary leisure-time reading and such factors as age, gender, intelligence, academic achievement and standard of living. It also looks at the influences of parents, teachers, peers, contemporary literature-teaching practices, school and public libraries, and leisure- time pursuits other than reading. Many suggestions are offered for further research into finer aspects of those considerations. Many of the findings serve merely to corroborate research from abroad, particularly in respect of age, gender and intelligence. That is none the less alarming when a striking decline in reading is found to occur in the early years of the secondary school. A number of other interesting findings emerge. Standard of living is shown to be inversely correlated with amount of reading, and television-viewing is not found to displace reading. Nor are other leisure-time pursuits found to affect amount of reading: avid readers are by and large extremely active and committed pupils. Reading emerges from the study as providing its own peculiar satisfaction, as does each of the other leisure activities investigated. The challenge is to ensure that infrequent readers become aware of what reading has to offer, and strategies for attempting to achieve that are posited, particularly with regard to the roles of public and school libraries. The roles of teachers and parents are found to be crucial to the development of an appetite for books, and it is suggested that schools and parents liaise formally and closely in this matter. The study groups pupils by a number of personal variables, and investigates their reactions to common forms and genres as well as to certain specifics of style, thereby discussing the relationship between reading, social maturity and academic achievement It argues strongly for recognition of the fact that educating secondary-school pupils in the development of keen and sensitive lifelong reading habits is a process which cannot be systematically taught as a set of skills.

Introduction. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how librarians in public libraries, school libraries and integ-rated libraries relate to reading for pleasure in regards to reading for development in their work with students. A conflict has been shown between promoting voluntary reading and promoting reading ability. We base our re-sults in Qvortrups theory about children as “beings” or “becomings” together with Junckers theory about the distinction between the cultures of the educational sector and the cultural sector. Method. We conducted a qualitative interview study with seven sources from the three library types. We also conducted a quantitative survey study with vignettes taken from the qualitative analysis. Analysis. The qualitative result was analysed with a conventional content analysis. We conducted three inde-pendent one way anovas to investigate if there were any differences between the library types in the survey. Results. The qualitative study showed that all sources highly valued reading for pleasure and the students right to choose literature. The school librarians more often related their work to improving reading ability and to school criteria than librarians from the other two library types. We found similar tendencies in the results from the survey sample but none of these was significant with a significance level of p < 0.05. Conclusion. Librarians from all types of libraries show a reasoning consistent with the view of children as “beings” and the culture from the cultural sector. School librarians in our results do more often than the other two library types show a view of children as “becomings” consistent with the culture from the educational sector. Therefore we would argue that it is important to watch the development with strengthened school lib-raries so that the view of children as “becomings” does not become the only perspective dominating children's daily lives. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

This study addresses the problem of reading among older adults and the relation of such reading to their sense of life satisfaction. The study also considers the relation between reading interests and activity of older adults and the availability to them of library materials and services.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:56:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciana _Alves Bonfim.pdf: 3822685 bytes, checksum: 097fa2f7d613d7d61bd57d3fc52333a9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-14 / This research presents, as its study focus, an analysis of the reading of the book collections from the Brazilian 2013 s School Library National Program (PNBE) for High School. Its purpose was to investigate, in first place, if the works in 2013 s PNBE for High School are read by public school students in the city of Palotina-PR to whom the collections are targeted and, in second place, to collect and analyze data on the reception of such works by the researched public. The following objectives were set in order to find answers for this questioning: to identify the works in 2013 s PNBE for High School read by students, to detect the most read works in this collections and, among these titles, to verify which ones would be the most recommended for reading by students in order to understand high school young readers thematic preferences. From these students recommendations and readers testimonies in the social network for readers Skoob, it was possible to observe how theses readers have established relations with the books read. To reach these purposes, second and third grade high school students from two public schools in the city of Palotina-PR answered a questionnaire. The schools were located in a neighborhood and downtown. The generated data from the questionnaires showed that the 2013 s PNBE for High School book collection has a low reading indication (the students read only 35% of the collection). The most recommended titles were: O mágico de Oz (L. Frank Baum), As aventuras de Pinóquio (Carlo Collodi), O homem invisível (H. G. Wells), Éramos Seis (Maria José Dupré), 13 contos de medo e arrepios (Almir Correia), A ilha (Flávio Carneiro) e A ilha do tesouro (Robert Louis Stevenson), with prevalence of the following thematics: terror, mistery, thriller, adventure, fantasy and family drama. The students recommendations and the readers testimonies collected from Skoob showed that the young readers are able of building meanings for their readings from the relations they establish between fiction and reality. In addition, they value opportunities for sharing reading experiences. The analyses and discussions in this research are guided by the theoretical reflections about the role of teachers and school libraries on reading mediation (PETIT, 2008), about literature teaching (TODOROV, 2009), trivial narration (KOTHE, 2009), school reading issues (RIOLFI ET AL. 2008; GERALDI, 1997; CADEMARTORI, 2012), interests and motivations for reading (BAMBERGER, 2000) and literature and art work issues (BORDIEU, 1989). / Esta pesquisa apresenta como foco de estudo uma análise sobre a leitura do acervo do Programa Nacional Biblioteca da Escola (PNBE) para Ensino Médio do ano de 2013. Seu propósito foi investigar, em primeiro lugar, se as obras do PNBE 2013 para Ensino Médio são lidas por alunos de colégios públicos da cidade de Palotina-PR aos quais os acervos se destinam e, em segundo lugar, coletar e analisar dados sobre a recepção de tais obras junto ao público pesquisado. Com a finalidade de encontrar respostas a esta problematização, os seguintes objetivos foram estabelecidos: identificar as obras do PNBE 2013 para Ensino Médio lidas pelos alunos, detectar as obras mais lidas deste acervo e, dentre estes títulos, verificar quais seriam os mais recomendados pelos alunos para a leitura para compreender as preferências temáticas dos jovens leitores do Ensino Médio. A partir das recomendações dos alunos e de depoimentos de leitor na rede social para leitores Skoob, observou-se como estes leitores estabeleceram relações com as obras lidas. Para alcançar estes propósitos, um questionário foi aplicado para alunos das segundas e terceiras séries do Ensino Médio de dois colégios estaduais da cidade de Palotina-PR, localizados em um bairro e no centro da cidade. Os dados gerados a partir do questionário indicaram que o acervo do PNBE 2013 Ensino Médio tem um baixo índice de leitura (apenas 35% do acervo foi lido pelos alunos). Os livros mais recomendados foram: O mágico de Oz (L. Frank Baum), As aventuras de Pinóquio (Carlo Collodi), O homem invisível (H. G. Wells), Éramos Seis (Maria José Dupré), 13 contos de medo e arrepios (Almir Correia), A ilha (Flávio Carneiro) e A ilha do tesouro (Robert Louis Stevenson), com prevalência das temáticas de terror, mistério, suspense, aventura, fantasia e drama familiar. A partir das recomendações dos alunos e dos depoimentos de leitor colhidos no Skoob, percebeu-se que os jovens leitores são capazes de construir sentidos para suas leituras a partir de relações que estabelecem entre ficção e realidade e valorizam oportunidades de compartilhamento de experiências leitoras. As análises e discussões desta pesquisa são balizadas pelas reflexões teóricas a respeito do papel do docente e da biblioteca escolar na mediação de leitura (PETIT, 2008), do ensino de literatura (TODOROV, 2009), da literatura de entretenimento (MAFRA, 2013) e narrativa trivial (KOTHE, 1994), de questões de leitura escolar (RIOLFI ET AL., 2008; GERALDI, 1997; CADEMARTORI, 2012), de interesses e motivações de leitura (BAMBERGER, 2000) e de questões de literatura e obra de arte (BORDIEU, 1989).

Prior studies based on data in the United States demonstrate that parental reading beliefs are significantly influenced by demographic characteristics, and their beliefs are significant predictors of home literacy practices and children's literacy development. Based on these findings, a model of parental reading beliefs was developed and tested. This study examined whether components within this model based on prior research findings in the United States would generalize to a sample of families in China. The study employed quantitative research methods, and parental reading beliefs, home literacy practices, children's reading interests, children's literacy development and literacy development served as variables. Instruments used to measure these five variables had been used in prior studies, and were adopted, modified, and translated into Chinese. The social-economic status (SES) of the family, gender and employment status of parents were controlled throughout the study. The sample for this study consisted of 795 parents of three- to four-year-old children attending Level A preschools in Shanghai. Participants were recruited through teachers in preschools, and data were collected via an online surveytool (SurveyMonkey ® ). Multiple regression analysis was used as the main statistical method to examine the associations between parental reading beliefs, home literacy practices, children's reading interest, and children's literacy and cognitive development, while incorporating control variables. Research findings demonstrated that demographic characteristics like socioeconomic status( SES), parents' gender and employment influenced parental reading beliefs significantly (p < .001); home literacy environments, children's reading interests, children's development both in literacy and cognition were closely related with parental reading beliefs (p < .001); although both parents' beliefs influence home literacy practices, mothers' beliefs played a more significant role in creating home literacy environments; the association of parental reading beliefs with children's reading interests and between parental reading beliefs and literacy development were mediated by home literacy practices; and the associations of parental reading beliefs with children's literacy and between cognition were mediated by children's reading interest. The present study demonstrated that the many parts of the model of parental reading beliefs may be generalized to a Chinese sample.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Few in the world value books more than writers do. They have an understanding of literature that it is hard for a non-writer to grasp – an awareness of the importance of words and stories, and their place in society. Therefore, when a writer has one of his own characters read a book, it generally means something. To pass over such a detail, to ignore the clues carefully placed, is to deprive oneself of the full meaning of a work. Every action, item, and movement in a novel contributes to the end, to the purpose and meaning of the work. A character in a novel might toss a book aside, think nothing of having an empty library, or merely note a title in passing. But to the writer, and so also to the reader, these actions are of great significance. This paper looks at The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton and analysis the reading material of its hero, Newland Archer, in order to come to a better understanding of this character, Wharton’s narratives in general, and of Wharton herself. Newland Archer is a character who is in significant ways defined by the books he acquires and reads. Each book has been picked with such care it is possible to get a good idea of what type of person Archer is merely by looking at what he reads. It is therefore important to ask what his reading list says about him and why Wharton would have invested so much time in building this list. Wharton has made Archer’s library his autobiography.