Explore the vast range of titles available.

A reading circle is a small discussion group administered by peers who choose to read the same story, poem, article or book (Daniels, 2002, p. 2). Various studies have proven that reading circles have a positive impact on students’ reading comprehension skills (Altınkaya, 2019; Avcı & Yüksel, 2011; Balantekin, 2016; Brown, 2002; Kaya-Tosun, 2018; Sarı, Kurtuluş, & Yücel-Toy, 2017). This study aims to improve students’ reading comprehension strategies and help them develop a positive attitude toward reading as well as contribute to their reading habits using the reading circle technique. The researcher and a Turkish teacher cooperated within the scope of this study, which was designed as action research, and they used the reading circle technique to improve students’ reading comprehension strategies as well as their reading attitudes and habits. This study was conducted with 28 students, and the students were divided into four groups with seven members to form small discussion groups. Reading circle sessions were held on Zoom for 10 weeks, with each session lasting 30 minutes for each group. In the present study, the “Book Metaphor Form” was developed by Gül (2019), and students’ progress was monitored by administering pre-test and post-test with the “Reading Habits and Attitudes Scale” as well as the “Reading Comprehension Strategies Scale” developed by Susar-Kırmızı (2006). The process was monitored through “Task Cards,” “Reading Circle Control List,” “Researcher Observation Form” and “Reading Circle Evaluation Form.” Results of the quantitative analyses showed that reading circles did not affect students’ reading comprehension strategies as well as their reading attitudes and habits. Results of the qualitative analyses indicated that reading circles had an increasing effect on students’ motivation to read a book, their positive attitudes toward books/reading, such as using the library and exchanging books, and their use of strategies to learn a new word. On the other hand, students were observed to be able to associate what they read with real life and improve their skills to make a summary and work in groups. At the end of the process, students’ metaphoric perceptions of books changed, and those who perceived books as a tool of amusement decreased while the number of students who regarded books as a source of information increased. In brief, the qualitative analyses conducted within the scope of this study suggested that students’ use of reading comprehension strategies as well as their attitudes and habits about reading improved, whereas this was not reflected in the quantitative data of this study. The current study results support the idea of using reading circles with secondary school students and point out because it is necessary to investigate the effect of reading circles with studies to be conducted with different groups for longer periods. Okuma çemberi; aynı hikâyeyi, şiiri, makaleyi veya kitabı okumayı seçen akranlar tarafından yönetilen küçük tartışma gruplarıdır (Daniels, 2002, s. 2). Bu araştırmada okuma çemberi tekniğinin kullanılmasıyla öğrencilerin okuduğunu anlama stratejilerini geliştirmek, okumaya karşı olumlu tutum geliştirmelerine ve okuma alışkanlıklarına katkı sağlamak amaçlanmıştır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda eylem araştırması olarak tasarlanan araştırmada, araştırmacı ve bir Türkçe öğretmeninin iş birliğinde okuma çemberi tekniği kullanılarak öğrencilerin okuduğunu anlama stratejileri, okuma tutum ve alışkanlıkları iyileştirilmeye çalışılmıştır. 28 öğrencinin katılımıyla gerçekleştirilen araştırmada öğrenciler yedişerli dört farklı gruba ayrılarak küçük tartışma grupları oluşturulmuştur. Okuma çemberi oturumları 10 hafta boyunca Zoom programı kullanılarak her grup için 30 dakika olacak şekilde çevrimiçi gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırma sürecinde “Kitap Metafor Formu”, Gül (2019) tarafından geliştirilmiş “Okuma Alışkanlığı ve Tutum Ölçeği”, Susar-Kırmızı’nın (2006) hazırladığı “Okuduğunu Anlama Stratejileri Ölçeği” ön ve son test olarak uygulanarak öğrencilerin gelişimleri izlenmiştir. Uygulama süreci, “Görev Kartları”, “Okuma Çemberi Kontrol Listesi” ve “Araştırmacı Gözlem Formu” ve “Okuma Çemberi Değerlendirme Formu” ile takip edilmiştir. Nicel analizlerden elde edilen verilere göre okuma çemberi uygulamaları, öğrencilerin okuduğunu anlama stratejileri ile okuma tutum ve alışkanlıklarının geliştirilmesine etki etmemektedir. Nitel analizlerden elde edilen verilere göre ise okuma çemberinin uygulanmasıyla öğrencilerin kitap okumaya yönelik motivasyonlarında, kütüphaneyi kullanma ve kitap değiş-tokuşu yapma gibi kitaba/okumaya yönelik olumlu tutumlarında ve sözcük öğrenme stratejilerini kullanmalarında iyileşme görülmüştür. Diğer yandan, öğrencilerin okunanları gerçek hayatla daha çok ilişkilendirilebildikleri ve özetleme becerileri ile grupla çalışma becerilerinin geliştiği gözlenmiştir. Uygulamalar sonucunda öğrencilerin kitaba ilişkin metaforik algıları değişmiş, kitabı eğlence aracı olarak görenler azalırken kitabı bilgi kaynağı olarak görenlerin arttığı görülmüştür. Kısacası, bu araştırmada nitel analizlerden elde edilen verilere göre öğrencilerin okuma stratejileri kullanımları ile okumaya yönelik tutum ve alışkanlıklarının olumlu yönde geliştiği gözlenmişken bu durum nicel analizlerden elde edilen verilere yansımamıştır. Araştırmanın sonuçları okuma çemberlerinin ortaokul düzeyindeki öğrencilere uygulanmasını desteklemekte ve farklı gruplarla daha uzun süre yürütülecek çalışmalarda okuma çemberlerinin etkisinin incelenmesinin gerekli olduğuna işaret etmektedir.

\"Part of Our Lives challenges the conventional idea that public libraries are valuable mostly because they are essential to democracy. Instead, this book uses the voices of generations of public library users to argue that Americans have loved their libraries for the useful information they make accessible; the public spaces they provide; and the commonplace reading materials they supply that help users make sense of the world around them.\"-- Provided by publisher.

Emergent literacy is an umbrella term that encompasses developmental precursor skills, knowledge, and attitudes related to reading and writing. Previous studies have focused on the cognitive aspects of reading, such as word recognition, phonological awareness, and comprehension. However, reading is also an activity that requires effort and involves motivation and attitudes. These affective dimensions are given little attention in the literature on children’s literacy development. To fill this gap, this study investigates preliterate preschoolers’ attitudes toward reading in relation to gender, maternal factors, and home literacy environment. The sample included 261 parents and their 5 year-old children. The data were collected using a preschool reading attitudes scale, a home literacy environment questionnaire, and a parent survey. The findings reveal that gender, time spent watching television, and computer use were unrelated to children’s reading attitudes. However, children’s home literacy environment, the number of books in their household, and maternal reading attitudes and reading habits were significantly related, accounting for 62% of the variance in children’s reading attitudes. These results suggest mothers are role models for children’s attitudes regarding direct literacy experiences and affective responses to reading. Investigating the contribution made by early home literacy experiences to reading attitudes and early literacy skills allows an understanding of how cognitive and motivational factors are involved in the learning-to-read process.

Leisure reading is associated with several important educational and cognitive benefits, and yet fewer and fewer young adults are reading in their free time. To better study what drives leisure reading in undergraduates, we developed the Predictors of Leisure Reading (PoLR) scale. The PoLR investigates key predictors of leisure reading, namely reading motivations, obstacles, attitudes, and interests. We examined the PoLR’s ability to predict language skills in 200 undergraduates, both directly and indirectly via exposure to fiction and nonfiction texts. Language skills were measured with a diverse battery of tasks, including items from two sections of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. We found that reading enjoyment predicts better verbal abilities, and this was often explained via exposure to fiction rather than nonfiction. In contrast, participants who reported reading due to extrinsic pressures typically had weaker verbal abilities, often explained by stronger associations with nonfiction. This pattern was observed across the raw correlations and in a series of path analyses. In sum, it was ‘reading enjoyment’ and ‘identifying as a reader’ that uniquely predicted better verbal abilities in our undergraduate sample. The importance of these findings is discussed in relation to fostering reading enjoyment throughout the various stages of formal education.

Many students infrequently read during leisure time. Due to fast, unconscious decisions, they may overlook the possibility of reading. We tested the impact of nudging on reading frequency, reading attitude, and reading skills. Two studies targeting Grades 4 to 6 (N = 105) and Grades 7 and 8 (N = 146) compared: (1) a nudging condition—participants twice a week receiving reminders to read, (2) an information condition—participants once receiving information about the importance of reading, and (3) a control condition—participants receiving neither information nor reminders. In primary education, nudges positively affected parents’ knowledge of children’s books and students’ reading attitudes. In secondary education, nudges positively impacted students’ book knowledge. All effects only occurred for those students and parents most prone to reading. For the majority of the students, nudges did not improve reading outcomes. Therefore, we speculate about more effective ways of nudging reading.

As indicated by some studies, the problem of ＂falling behind＂ often exists when using computer-assisted learning with children, and gender may be a factor in this. While digital contents presented on various e-readers are promising replacements for paper-and-ink books, the question arises as to whether this emerging technology will have the same effect with boys and girls? Conventionally, boys are believed to have more aptitude for using computer and information technologies, and it is of interest to see if this is true when using e-books in an educational context. In this study, two investigations were conducted to explore children's attitudes, reading behaviors and outcomes in order to find out if there were any gender differences in the reading of e-books. The first investigation was conducted with 166 elementary school students to evaluate their attitudes towards reading with an Interactive E-book Learning System (IELS), a tailor-made e-book learning environment for children. The results showed that the gendered attitudes in terms of the Satisfaction dimension and the expectation for the usable functions were different. Twenty-three sixth-grade children then participated in the second investigation, in which they silently read two e-books in the IELS with a reading behavior tracking technique, and a retrieval test was conducted to assess the reading outcome for each e-book. The results show that while the girls mostly had the behavior of Skimming during the reading process, they outscored the boys in the retrieval tests. Although the application of personalized reading technologies in education, such as reading e-books with IELS, tends to diminish the gap in technology adaptation between the genders, however, the gender differences, as revealed in this work, are still substantial and considerable to factor in children's reading of e-books. In practice, the results of this study suggest that these differences may create reading barriers for some children, and thus should be taken into account when e-books are used for formal learning.

The purpose of this study is to explain the gender differences in reading achievement with the mediating role of metacognitive strategies and reading-related attitudes. Hypotheses were tested with 6890 students [3396 (49.3%) females, 3494 (50.7%) males] who participated in PISA 2018 in Turkey. The path analysis results indicated that gender had significant associations with metacognitive strategies and reading-related attitudes. One remarkable result is that gender affected metacognitive strategies about lower cognitive levels more than strategies about higher cognitive levels, and that the female advantage was reduced for upper metacognitive strategies. Additionally, reading-related attitudes, except for perception of reading competence, and metacognitive strategies were significantly associated with reading achievement. In addition, the results revealed that metacognitive strategies and reading-related attitudes, except for perception of reading competence, fully mediated gender and reading achievement. Overall, the results show that the gender difference in reading achievement is not only due to gender itself, but may also be due to differentiation of the metacognitive strategies and reading-related attitudes of girls and boys. As a result, the teaching of metacognitive strategies and development of reading-related attitudes to students are recommended, in order to reduce the gender gap in reading achievement. Limitations, practical implications, and recommendations for future research are discussed.

The English reading ability of university students is crucial for their academic achievement, regardless of whether they are studying English or any other subject in English. Examining the affective factors that influence this ability is critical for understanding its development. Research has been conducted on the correlation between first language (L1) and English as a second language (ESL/EFL) reading attitudes, but there is limited research on the correlation between L2 and L1. This research seeks to investigate the similarities in reading perspectives between Arabic-speaking international students and English-speaking university students. The study employed surveys and semi-structured interviews to evaluate individuals' viewpoints on bilingual reading. The objective was to assess individuals' attitudes towards reading in two languages. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted. The study revealed that students' reading preferences remained consistent across different languages. However, the relationship between second-language reading attitudes and first-language reading attitudes was found to be minimal. The implications of the current study suggest that enhancing reading attitudes in both languages may enhance reading ability. The study utilised subjective data and targeted a specific demographic, limiting its generalizability to more diverse student populations.

Reading skills are an important component of academic success for school-age youth, and are associated with increased academic performance and positive attitudes about school. The presence of an animal appears to reduce stress during reading. Therefore, the goal of this study was to assess the feasibility and effects of a 6-week after-school canine-assisted reading program in a public elementary school setting. Second-grade students were randomized to either an intervention group (n = 14) in which they read to a registered therapy dog for 30 min once weekly for 6 weeks or a control group (n = 14) with a standard classroom curriculum. Children’s reading skills were assessed biweekly and attitudes about reading were assessed pre- and post-intervention. The 6-week after-school canine-assisted reading program was feasible. Reading skill scores did not change significantly for either group. Although scores on recreational reading attitudes also did not change significantly for either group, the academic reading attitudes scores increased significantly in the intervention group (p = .002), but not in the control group (p = .06). These results support the benefits of an animal-assisted intervention for child literacy on children’s attitudes about reading and can inform future programs evaluating reading programs that include dogs.