This study is concerned with the social production of adolescent readers of fiction and with the formation of their responses to the fiction they read. It was conceived from within the mainstream "progressive" tradition of secondary English teaching, but is written from a perspective informed by more recent developments in literary theory. The overall problem addressed is: how do adolescents become confirmed readers of fiction? It is investigated in two ways. The first seeks to identify those working practices and social relations in secondary schools most likely to promote adolescent fiction reading. The second seeks to understand the perceptions that adolescents have of the fiction that they read. The report is based upon a longitudinal study of six teaching groups in three comprehensive schools. A combination of ethnographic and survey methods was employed. In two of the schools fiction reading was found to decline sharply over the two year period. Readership patterns were closely associated with social class origins, gender and school ability grouping. In the third school, however, which had the highest proportion of working class students, fiction reading did not decline, nor was it influenced by ability grouping, gender or social class. These different reading outcomes are shown to relate closely to the working practices and the exercise of power within the schools. One school functions as a reaing community; the other two do not. The significance of the findings is discussed in relation to contemporary theories of cultural and social reproduction. Schools, it is concluded, have the capacity to do very much more than reproduce and legitimate existing socio-economic differences at and by the cultural level. As for the individual response to literature, the original intention was to present case studies of representative readers from the sample. All three schools sought to initiate their students,ith varying degrees of success, into a particular discourse, the discourse of personal growth, in which fiction reading is held to contribute to the reader's enhanced understanding of the self, others and the world. This view, however, rests upon assumptions about language and texts, the reading process and subjectivity which the intervention of structuralism and later developments in literary theory have rendered untenable. In order to understand the theoretical limitations of this discourse, its disabling classroom consequences and the possibilities for its transformation to more radical and liberating approaches to texts, the case study presented here is of the discourse itself, rather than of those readers who sought access to it.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of dialogue journal writing, journal writing without dialogue, and regular classroom instruction on the reading comprehension of college students enrolled in a developmental reading class. Also, the effect of the journal writing on the college students' metacognitive awareness of reading strategies was investigated.The subjects were 77 freshman college students enrolled in six credit/no credit developmental reading classes at a mid-size midwestern university. Two of the classes wrote dialogue journals in which the teacher responded in writing to what the students wrote. The second two classes wrote in journals but received no written feedback. The last two classes received regular class instruction with no journal writing.The Nelson-Denny Reading Test was used as the post test. The results of a three-way analysis of variance with nesting indicated that there was no difference in the reading comprehension scores among the journal writing only, the dialogue journal writing, and the control groups. The results also indicated that there was no difference between the reading comprehension scores of males and females.A second three-way analysis of variance with nesting was conducted using the students' mean responses on the Wingenbach Reading Strategies Questionnaire. The results indicated that there was no significant differences within the classes in each treatment or between the males and females in the three treatment groups.The control group did score greater when contrasted with the two treatment groups on the questionnaire. The dialogue journal group also scored greater than the journal writing only group.The results of this study indicated that journal writing with or without dialogue did not affect the reading comprehension scores of the students in this study. Another finding of this study, suggested that teacher interaction either through additional class time or written dialogue can result in greater metcognitive awareness of reading strategies. / Department of Elementary Education

No description available.

The problem selected for study in the present research project is to determine the reading interests of freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate students enrolled in the North Texas State Teachers College, Denton, Texas, during the first semester of the 1942-1943 school year.

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"The purpose of this paper is to develop a list of printed books on China, in the fields of fiction and non-fiction, suitable for use with junior and senior high school students. Since the writer of this paper is a Chinese girl who has appreciated the opportunity to live and study in America for the past six years, she is especially interested in suggesting adequate materials for use in America in motivating a better understanding of China. The compilation of such a bibliography has been undertaken as a step in achieving the good will and better understanding of English-speaking peoples in relation to China. As a result of discussion with Mrs. Sara K. Srygley, formerly Consultant in Library Service, Florida State Department of Education, and an examination of an available bibliography of books for high school libraries, it has been ascertained that there is a need for such a list"--Introduction. / "June, 1953." / At head of title: Florida State University. / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Sara K. Srygley, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-45).

"Do high school students read? And do the ones who read have a well-balanced reading program, or is the reading done haphazardly? Sometimes these, and similar questions, result in answers subjective in character being framed in such sweeping generalizations as today's youth does little or no personal reading. Such statements have been the motive for numerous investigative surveys. These studies have revealed the value of a permanent interest in reading as an essential aid to personal development and social culture. They have pointed out the increasing demands made by society for greater proficiency in reading. Also, they have shown the importance of the reading program in the curriculum as a medium for establishing in youth a permanent interest in reading both for information and for recreation. Thus far, however, surveys have not established the fact that reading interests and habits differ between rural and urban pupils. This study, therefore, is an attempt to discover what differences, if any, exist in the reading interests and habits between a group of rural and urban children. The pupils considered are those enrolled during the 1950-51 session in the tenth grade in Walton High School DeFuniak Springs, Florida. In the course of this paper, pupils who ride school busses a distance of two miles or more are to be identified as 'transported' pupils; those who live within a radius of two miles of the school center and who do not ride school busses are to be referred to as 'non-transported' pupils"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1952." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Robert G. Clapp, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-48).

No description available.

The advent of technology, especially the electronic media, heralded a new era of communication. Together with this boom came a host of reading challenges that has affected the learner and learner performance in the classroom. In the PIRLS report (2006) an emergence of a “non-reading” culture was noted as a result of poor performance by learners in South Africa. This research aims to explore the reading choices of grade 4 learners and why they choose to read what they read. The research was conducted at a public primary school in the Chatsworth region in KwaZulu Natal. This research used the qualitative case study approach which is set within the interpretivist paradigm. The main source of data generation was the semi-structured interviews of five learners and their respective parents. In addition to this method, two structured observations were conducted: observations of the reading- for- pleasure lessons and the LRE lessons. To conclude the data collection, a case scenario, where the learners created their own reading room, was used. This multi-pronged approach was adopted to fill in the information gaps and omissions that arose from the interviews. The analysis of the data indicates the following: girls read more frequently than boys, newspapers form the bulk of the reading at home, billboards are an interesting addition to their reading list, girls are intrinsically motivated. Findings show that the electronic media require higher levels of literacy skills to access the highly- textual society of the workplace. It becomes imperative that reading be motivated, taught and encouraged. The definition of literacy by the school and the home should be revisited and reviewed so that learners are not disadvantaged. Furthermore, the teachers and the librarians will thus have a greater degree of flexibility in selecting reading materials for the classroom and the library respectively. It becomes vitally important that we heed the warning of Alvermann (2001, p. 680) who argues that “the possibility that as a culture we are making struggling readers out of some adolescents who for any number of reasons have turned their backs on a version of literacy called school literacy is a sobering thought” / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This study determined the instructional approaches and teaching techniques and materials reading specialists perceived to be the most effective for the seventh and eighth grade remedial reading courses mandated by Texas House Bill 246. It also determined the most effective inservice procedures for training teachers assigned to teach these courses. Fifty-four Texas reading specialists, representing school districts, service centers, and colleges and universities, participated as panelists in the Delphi, completing three rounds of questionnaires. Perceived recommendations were rated by panelists according to levels of effectiveness.