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- Vinterek, Monika, 1956-, et al.
(author)
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Amount of Text Read at School and the Motivation for Reading : A Large Scale Study in Grade 6 and 9
- 2018
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In: European Conference on Educational Research, Bolzano, Italy, September 4-7, 2018. - Berlin.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper reports on some preliminary results from the project “To read or not to read: A study of reading practices in compulsory school” funded by the Swedish Research Council. The aim of the project is to develop knowledge of existing reading practices and to find out what kind of teaching that promotes such practices in a way that enables students to learn from reading. The decline in students’ reading literacy is something that concerns and worries many European and other Western countries. But surprisingly it is difficult to find large scale studies focusing on how much students read at school. To be a good reader one needs to practice (Kuhn & Stahl, 2003; Campell et al., 2001); it takes more than 5000 hours of reading to achieve a well-functioning reading capacity (Lundberg & Herrlin, 2005). To learn from text one needs to be able to read a longer text (Topping et al., 2007; Merisuo-Storm & Soininen, 2014). Prior research in the field further shows that it is important for students to read different types of texts (Kuhn & Stahl, 2003) and thus develop vocabulary and reading skills in many subjects (see, for example, Biemiller, 2001).The amount of reading, at school or at leisure, correlates positively with reading ability (Anderson et al., 1988; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Taylor et al., 990). In our study we therefore are interested in the total amount of coherent and continuous text students read during an average school day in all their subjects, with a particular focus on reading habits in Swedish (L1), English (L2), Chemistry, and History. We also want to find out how the amount of reading correlates with the students’ self-assessed motivation for their school-initiated reading activities. In the first part of the project there is a predominantly quantitative focus in which we seek to find out the extent to which students read continuous prose texts – fictional as well as non-fictional – as part of their everyday school work, and how their reading is related to different types of motivation. The second part of the project has a predominantly qualitative focus where a limited number of groups will be selected for a series of closer classroom studies of teachers as well as students through observations, interviews and questionnaires in order to find out what characterizes the reading practices of these schools and classes. This paper will report on some preliminary results from the first part of the project where the following research questions are to be answered:To what extent do students in years 6 and 9 read continuous prose text—fiction as well as nonfiction— as part of their school work?What kind of motivation do students express for reading nonfiction and fiction texts in different school subjects?What is the nature of the relationship between students’ reading motivation and the extent of their reading in school?What differences in the interest of reading and in the reading habits among females and males, between school years 6 and 9, and between schools can be detected?
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| 2. |
- Vinterek, Monika, 1956-, et al.
(author)
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The Decrease of School Related Reading in Swedish Compulsory School – Trends Between 2007 and 2017
- 2022
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In: Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. - : Routledge. - 0031-3831 .- 1470-1170. ; 66:1, s. 119-133
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Even though the importance of extensive reading practice is well documented, as are students’ changing leisure-time reading habits, we still have little knowledge of how much students read at school. Therefore, this study investigates how many pages of continuous and coherent text, nonfiction as well as fiction, students in middle and lower secondary school read during an ordinary school day. Comparing data from two large-scale surveys, in 2007 and 2017, our analyses indicate that the proportion of students who read one full page or more has decreased significantly. There are still more students in middle school compared to lower secondary who read nonfiction, whereas the reading of fiction is now equally low. We conclude that the growing achievement gap among Swedish students on reading literacy tests is mirrored in the widening divide between students who still read extensively at school and those who do not read at all.
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| 3. |
- Winberg, Mikael T., 1963-, et al.
(author)
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Motivational Aspects of Students’ Amount of Reading and Affective Reading Experiences in a School Context : A Large-Scale Study of Grades 6 and 9
- 2022
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In: Reading Psychology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0270-2711 .- 1521-0685. ; 43:7, s. 442-476
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- As leisure-time reading among adolescents declines in the western world, stakeholders try to increase students’ motivation for school-related reading. We examine the relationship of students’ autonomous and controlled reading motivation with their amount and experiences of school-related reading in four school subjects, controlling for students’ attitudes toward the school subjects and general attitudes toward reading. Questionnaire data were collected from 3308 students in Grades 6 and 9 at 144 schools in Sweden. Multiple linear regression indicates that students’ attitudes toward the subject are more important predictors of reading amount than their reading motivation. Motivation type was primarily related to students’ affective experiences of the reading, and only weakly related to their amount of school-related reading. Results suggest that the relationship between motivation and school-related reading differ from voluntary leisure-time reading. The study thus complements previous research which primarily has focused on the role of students’ motivation for their amount of leisure-time reading.
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