Influences on grade-five students' decisions to read: an exploratory study of leisure reading behavior

• Main Author: Whitney, Patricia
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7137

The purpose of this study was to explore why a child who is a capable reader either elects to read or not to read during out-of-school leisure time. A sample of grade-five students (N = 53) from a school district outside a major metropolitan area in British Columbia, Canada, provided information about their out-of-school activities for a 17 day period. Measures administered were the comprehension section of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test (1992), the Children’s Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Control Scale (CNSIE), and the recreational reading subscale of the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS). Subjects, their parents, and their teachers were interviewed. Analyses of the means were conducted for out-of-school activities, amount of reading (books, magazines, newspapers, comic books, and mail), and affective beliefs and values. A series of analyses of variance, t-tests, chi-square analyses, and multiple regressions were used for the variables of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, reading ability, locus of control, attitude toward recreational reading, classroom factors, home factors, and amounts of reading. Significant effects were found for gender, attitude toward recreational reading, teacher behavior during Undisturbed Sustained Silent Reading, reading behavior of siblings and parents, and provision of a space for reading in the home.