Are Disadvantaged Students Unmotivated to Read? An Interview Study of Engaged and Disengaged Readers in Low SES Australian Schools
View/ Open
File version
Accepted Manuscript (AM)
Author(s)
Ng, Chi-Hung
Bartlett, Brendan
Wyatt-Smith, Claire
Wyvill, Janet
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2012
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This study disputed the general perception that disadvantaged students are unmotivated to read. Interviews with students in Year 5 classes at low SES schools in Queensland, Australia, provided evidence of underlying variation in the ways that engaged and disengaged readers observe and respond to their opportunities and experiences in reading at school and at home. Despite their shared disadvantaged backgrounds with disengaged readers, engaged students were more motivated to read, consistently engaged in classroom reading and often shared their reading with family members. While disengaged readers experienced motivational ...
View more >This study disputed the general perception that disadvantaged students are unmotivated to read. Interviews with students in Year 5 classes at low SES schools in Queensland, Australia, provided evidence of underlying variation in the ways that engaged and disengaged readers observe and respond to their opportunities and experiences in reading at school and at home. Despite their shared disadvantaged backgrounds with disengaged readers, engaged students were more motivated to read, consistently engaged in classroom reading and often shared their reading with family members. While disengaged readers experienced motivational problems and failed to display a consistent reading engagement pattern in school and at home, most of them still considered themselves good readers and understood the importance of reading. We argue that disengaged readers were not utterly unmotivated and urge teachers to provide additional support to engage them in reading and to build on their extant reading motivation.
View less >
View more >This study disputed the general perception that disadvantaged students are unmotivated to read. Interviews with students in Year 5 classes at low SES schools in Queensland, Australia, provided evidence of underlying variation in the ways that engaged and disengaged readers observe and respond to their opportunities and experiences in reading at school and at home. Despite their shared disadvantaged backgrounds with disengaged readers, engaged students were more motivated to read, consistently engaged in classroom reading and often shared their reading with family members. While disengaged readers experienced motivational problems and failed to display a consistent reading engagement pattern in school and at home, most of them still considered themselves good readers and understood the importance of reading. We argue that disengaged readers were not utterly unmotivated and urge teachers to provide additional support to engage them in reading and to build on their extant reading motivation.
View less >
Journal Title
International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education
Volume
2
Issue
SI 2
Copyright Statement
© 2012 Infonomics Society. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal website for access to the definitive, published version.
Subject
Specialist Studies in Education not elsewhere classified
Education Systems
Curriculum and Pedagogy
Specialist Studies in Education