‘We’re a little loud. That’s because we like to read!’: Developing positive views of reading in a diverse,urban first grade

Engaged reading framework

Understanding reading as a composite of decoding skills plus literal comprehension does not offer a complete picture of reading. The engagement view of reading includes basic literacy skills but, importantly, it also emphasizes students’ purposes, beliefs, desires, interests, motivations and social interactions related to reading (Guthrie and Anderson, 1999; Klauda and Wigfield, 2012; Wigfield et al., 2015). Indeed, conceptualizing student engagement broadly speaking as behavioural, cognitive and emotional (Bundick et al., 2014) incorporates literacy behaviours, strategies, attitudes and relationships. Guthrie and Anderson (1999: 20) defined reading, according to this framework, as ‘motivated, strategic, conceptual, social interaction with text and written language’ (see also Tonks and Taboada, 2011). Engaged readers not only can decode and comprehend, but they want to; they apply strategies to make meaning, to learn concepts and to share their thinking. Guthrie and Anderson (1999: 37) emphasize that ‘in an engaging classroom, reading lessons are designed to develop long-term motivation, knowledge, social competence, and skill’.

Adherents to an engagement perspective of reading incorporate a social emphasis. Guthrie and Anderson (1999: 24) suggest that reading does not occur ‘in a void, but in a stream of cultural practices into which young students are enculturated’. As students develop a love of reading and reading tastes, they increase their participation in the literate community and both learn from and contribute to it. In fact, authors of recent theoretical frameworks of engagement have adopted terms like ‘social ecological’ or ‘transactional’ to emphasize the context of community (both within and beyond the school) where engagement develops (Lawson and Lawson, 2013). Recent work continues to validate the engagement reading framework while drawing attention to the relationships that affect motivation (Unrau et al., 2015).

Guthrie and Wigfield (2000: 404) suggest the following portrait of engaged readers: ‘[They] coordinate their strategies and knowledge (cognition) within a community of literacy (social) in order to fulfil their personal goals, desires, and intentions (motivation)’. In a later work, they define engaged readers as ‘motivated to read, strategic in their approaches to reading, knowledgeable in their construction of meaning from text, and socially interactive while reading’ (Guthrie et al., 2012: 601). Engaged readers have an intrinsic motivation to read strategically for learning and enjoyment and to share this experience.

The importance of engagement

The engaged reading framework suggests a pathway from instructional practices, to motivation to read, to engagement in reading, to reading achievement (Guthrie et al., 2012). That engaged reading leads to reading achievement is a central assumption of the framework, and after an extensive review of the available evidence, Guthrie et al. (2012: 630) conclude that ‘there now is clear evidence that students’ motivation and engagement mediate the effects of classroom practices on student achievement outcomes’. These findings influence the goal creation of cultivating a love of reading and help us to develop and refine interventions.

Students who do not feel engaged in reading are unlikely to participate in much voluntary reading and may resist reading for school tasks. Reading engagement, a broader concept distinct from but developing out of reading motivation (Unrau et al., 2015), establishes an important foundation for reading behaviours and success (Sharkey et al., 2014). Reading motivation is a strong predictor of comprehension (Park, 2011). Intrinsic reading motivation is associated with choosing to read more (Logan et al., 2011; Wigfield and Guthrie, 1997) and achieving deeper levels of comprehension (Mol and Jolles, 2014; Schiefele et al., 2012), a self-reinforcing process that leads to more reading (De Naeghel et al., 2012; Swan et al., 2010). Furthermore, researchers have found that reading motivation predicts not only comprehension, but comprehension growth over a future period (Guthrie et al., 2007; Taboada et al., 2009).

In fact, one study showed the amount of time spent in engaged reading, including independent reading for enjoyment, predicted higher achievement, even overriding the predictive power of the mother’s level of education (Guthrie et al., 2001). This same study identified that the relationship between achievement and opportunity to read was mediated by engagement. In other words, students only achieve higher reading scores as a result of the opportunity to read if they respond to the opportunity with engaged reading. The researchers thus conclude that developing engaged readers for its own sake is a worthwhile outcome of instruction. A recent review of engagement research found that many researchers consider engagement as a direct pathway to learning outcomes (Lawson and Lawson, 2013).

Logan et al. (2011: 127) found intrinsic motivation to explain significant variance in reading comprehension for struggling readers and concluded that ‘interventions aimed at increasing intrinsic reading motivation may be particularly important for low ability readers’. With these understandings in mind, we aim to support engaged reading and love of books among all first-grade students in our study.

Promoting reading engagement

In an analysis of instructional practices that increase reading motivation, researchers have found providing high-interest texts, student choice, knowledge goals related to content and collaboration to be powerful ways of motivating students (Guthrie and Humenick, 2004). High-interest, quality and developmentally appropriate texts engage. As Chambliss and McKillop (2000: 98) explain, ‘The well-designed classroom library can be the centrepiece for a community of readers, motivating children to read, and engaging them in a cycle that promotes the development of literacy.’ Interesting texts encourage students to read more and to interact with the books available in their reading community.

Integrating content-area study with literacy further supports student engagement. Researchers have framed the need for integration as mastery goals related to relevant content (Swan et al., 2010). Others have referred to the benefit of offering enquiry-based instruction that brings together non-fiction reading and writing, content knowledge and student synthesis of independent reading from multiple informational texts (Dreher, 2000; Guccione, 2011; Guthrie and Alvermann, 1999; Moses et al., 2015). Instruction that supports motivation provides learning goals, real-world connections, autonomy, interesting texts and instructional coherence across these components (Guthrie and Wigfield, 2000; Wigfield et al., 2008).

Teacher researchers have learned that teacher support and scaffolding is essential for developing engaged readers. Rather than encouraging students to read independently with no support or monitoring, teachers offer support to scaffold independent reading and consequently the love of reading (Hudson and Williams, 2015; Kelley and Clausen-Grace, 2006; Trudel, 2007; Worthy and Roser, 2010).

Pedagogical goal and intervention

With these understandings and findings about reading engagement, we aimed to develop instruction that included opportunities for success, challenge, choice and collaboration (Braunger and Lewis, 2006) and thus to develop a love of reading among the students in our sample. Although many primary children exhibit an inherent enjoyment of reading, the teacher selected the goal of cultivating a positive view of reading because, over her eight years of experience, she had observed that children often entered first grade with a skills-based view of reading that left many of them with damaged identities as readers, already feeling that they were not good at reading due to their struggles with skills. As she explained,

My thought was not that children are averse to reading, but our goal was to create this love and culture for reading that went deeper than what you sometimes see in a typical first-grade classroom. Some of my kids when they come into first grade think reading is a set of skills: ‘I have to practise my sight words’ or ‘I have to read these decodable books.’ It wasn’t necessarily about enjoying a good story and understanding it. Because it’s so skills-based in kindergarten, and sometimes in low SES (socioeconomic status) schools, we focus so hard on decoding interventions, and we’re giving them all these prescriptive strategies, that it’s really hard for teachers to find time to foster that love of reading that’s going to stick with them throughout their education. I think that the love of reading that we develop goes deeper than just kids liking to read: it’s kids forming relationships around books; it’s developing a sense of what they like to read and not just what they’re told to read, and developing a sense of their identity as a reader.

Indeed, research indicates that children exhibit increasing disidentification with school as they progress through their elementary years (Lawson and Lawson, 2013), and that student enjoyment, motivation and a positive attitudes towards reading often decline over this time frame (Sainsbury and Schagen, 2004; Smith et al., 2012). Thus, the teacher felt that with heavy emphasis on student assessment and skills instruction, establishing and strengthening students’ positive views of reading was a worthwhile instructional goal.

Theoretical perspective

The teacher and researchers brought a sociocultural perspective to the instruction and theoretical lens that guided the data analysis. Drawing on the work of Vygotsky (1978), Wertsch (1998) and Lave and Wenger (1991), we view students’ transactions with texts and each other as socially constructed and deeply rooted in the classroom community of practice. Scholars have noted the importance of studying engagement through a sociocultural lens because much work in this area has concentrated on engagement in specific content areas or among student subgroups and thus paid ‘insufficient attention to the complexities of classroom contexts’ (Bundick et al., 2014: 6) or failed to implement methodologies that analyse the interactions in the classroom leading to engagement. Taking a sociocultural lens and implementing a formative experiment allowed us to ‘better understand what engagement-related policies and practices work, for whom, where, under what circumstances, when, why, and for how long’ (Lawson and Lawson, 2013: 462).

Understanding that children negotiate meaning with one another in classrooms that encourage talk (Dyson, 2008), the teacher and researchers were also interested in the dialogic enquiry process that emerged within the social context of the classroom. This study explores the ways in which students do or do not develop a positive view of reading by analysing how they engage with texts, construct meaning with texts, discuss text a with peers, and report enjoyment and lack of enjoyment when engaging with texts.

Initial intervention

Based on the research associating student engagement with reading comprehension, the research team agreed there was a need to address the goal of developing a love of reading using a combination of research-based approaches. Thus, the teacher and the lead researcher co-designed the following initial instructional intervention to provide opportunities for autonomous learning, social reward and the enjoyment that comes from learning to read:

The teacher will create a literacy-rich classroom environment with easy access to literature. Books, magazines and alternative texts will be readily available for students to access without teacher support (book bins, low book shelves, displayed books, book bags etc.). The teacher will model and discuss the teacher’s and students’ love of reading, reading interests and thinking related to reading on a weekly basis. Students will have extensive opportunities to engage in independent and partner reading experiences.

Students engaged in self-selected independent reading and partner reading during the reading workshop time (the period after the initial mini-lesson when the teacher gathered together small groups and conferred). Both of these practices included researched-based instructional supports to scaffold independent reading (Bryan et al., 2003), teacher conferencing and student discussions (Kelley and Clausen-Grace, 2009), read-alouds to model fluent reading and strategy use (Pegg and Bartelheim, 2011) and establishing clear structures for participation in order to support emergent readers in the early stages of engagement (Mahiri and Maniates, 2013). The initial intervention was modified and expanded throughout the course of the year. The detailed sequence of the interventions can be found in the Modifications section.

Setting and participants

This study took place in a first-grade classroom in a Title I elementary school in the Southwest United States. The school provided an anthology for teachers to use for literacy instruction, but teachers had academic freedom to deviate from the curriculum. The teacher was an eight-year veteran in the final year of her M.A. in Literacy Education. She adopted a student-centred and literature-based approach to reading and writing instruction and was not using the anthology for instruction.

The class consisted of 28 students with a range of cultural, linguistic, literacy and socioeconomic backgrounds. The classroom contained 13 boys and 15 girls; 7 were of Latin heritage, 14 were European American heritage (including two students of recent Russian immigrant background), 5 were African-American, 1 was of Pacific Islander descent and 1 was of Middle Eastern descent. Home languages in the classroom included English, Spanish, Russian and Arabic; three students were formally recognized as English learners, although eight students had a first language other than English. The free and reduced lunch rate (a common measure of low income) at the school was 67%. The students’ literacy levels ranged from a year below grade level to nearly a year ahead as measured by assessments in place at the school (Diagnostic Reading Assessment 2; scores ranged from 0 to 16 at the beginning of the year). All 28 students gave assent, and families provided consent for their children to participate in a study about effective literacy instruction for young children. The researchers included a university faculty member and doctoral student from the literacy department.

As previously mentioned, many students began the year with a ‘skills-based’ view of reading. They reported frustration and struggles with reading that often led to preferring alternative subjects or enjoyable experiences throughout the day. During initial observations, we observed many resistant behaviours during reading time. Most students demonstrated engaged and joyful behaviour during the whole-class read-alouds. However, many students demonstrated off-task, frustration or reading-resistant behaviours when asked to read independently or with partners. When initially observing and timing independent reading behaviours, the class was only able to read for three minutes before the teacher asked them to stop what they were doing because so many students were not reading.

Data sources and analysis

Weekly data collection included photography, observational checklists (see Appendix 1), field notes, Voxer reflections from the teacher (a voice messaging application) and video and audio recording during the literacy block over an academic year. Data collection included whole-group, small-group, one-on-one conferring, partner reading and independent work. Additionally, we conducted beginning, middle and end of year interviews about students’ perceptions of reading. These interviews took place in the hall outside the students’ classroom and lasted five to ten minutes each. (See Appendix 2 for interview questions.) We recorded open-ended planning sessions twice monthly with the teacher to reflect on the goals, interventions and modifications. We also collected:

Student artefacts (reading responses, book logs, writing and drawing related to reading)

Data analysis took two forms in this study. The first was ongoing analysis of the interventions reviewing the following data: teacher reflections, student artefacts, videos, observational checklists, transcriptions from meetings with the teacher regarding data collection, student progress and research questions. Drawing on these data points, our initial analysis and coding of these data were directly related to identifying factors that inhibited or enhanced the effectiveness of the intervention. This led to modifications of the intervention in order to more efficiently address the goal. We began to tentatively identify ways in which students were demonstrating engagement and enjoyment when reading and designed modifications based on the initial and emerging analysis throughout the year.

The next level of data analysis took place at the completion of data collection. We used open coding (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) to document and construct meaning during reviews of detailed video logs, researcher journals, teacher reflections, transcribed interviews and student artefacts. Some examples of these codes include the following: independent reading, social, talking, stamina, reader identity, positive talk, frustration, enjoyment, and discussion groups. Then, we began axial coding (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) related to the goals (one code for each of the teacher’s initial yearlong goals). Finally, we reviewed the data that were coded for the general goal of developing a positive view of reading and completed another round of axial coding that included subcategories/codes that were related to the data supporting this goal. These codes and themes documented the change in environment and students’ gradual development of a positive view of reading (see Table 1 for codes and descriptions). All data sources and analyses were used to triangulate claims of students’ positive or negative views of reading. The coding at each stage was first completed independently, but then collaboratively discussed, defined and revised by the co-researchers and authors based on our conversations and negotiations. This large study included an examination of both individual case studies and the collective classroom community of practice. For the purposes of this research question, we considered both individual voices and the classroom community. The quotes from children in the results section were selected as representative classroom examples from the extensive yearlong data collection.

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Table 1.

Codebook and description.

Codes	Description
Intervention modifications	Intervention Modifications include modifications and additions to instruction related to developing a positive view of reading.
Positive talk	Positive Talk includes excited, animated or positive talk related to specific books, reading in general, reading time or reading discussion.
Favourite author/genre	Favourite Author/Genre talk is related to students’ discussions when they specifically referred to their favourite author or specific genre of reading that they enjoyed the most (nonfiction, fiction, ABC etc.).
Resistance	Resistance refers to the desire to continue reading and complaining about having to stop reading, partner reading or discussions about reading.
Student selected	Student Selected includes instances of students selecting to read instead of other options.
Social	Social refers to the social interactions and considerations surrounding reading

Environment

The original classroom environment utilized an approach to reading whereby students had access to multiple genres of text (with few options for non-fiction at reading levels that could be accessed independently) in order to self-select for independent and partner reading time. During the reading workshop time (the period after the initial mini-lesson when the teacher gathered together small groups and conferred), the students read independently, did word work, read with a partner, listened to reading on the computer or wrote. As part of the initial intervention, we eliminated word work, working on writing and listening to reading because we wanted to focus on supporting engaged and active independent and partner reading. The teacher also began lessons modelling engaged reading and the importance of enjoying reading alone and with peers.

Throughout the year, the classroom environment transformed as students demonstrated a growing love of reading. For example, they increased their reading stamina from three to twenty-five minutes by mid-year for the remainder of the year (the teacher would stop independent reading time when students were off-task), evidenced excitement about reading and made book-sharing a social component of their classroom, as will be discussed in the findings.

Modifications

As we analysed observational data, student documents, teacher reflections and student conversations, we reflected every two weeks on how the intervention could be modified to achieve the pedagogical goal more effectively. Then, we adjusted our intervention and planned together for the modified instruction for the following two weeks. Table 2 provides the sequence of and information about the intervention modifications and corresponding data that were collected and analysed to make decisions about the modifications. The table is organized based on the original three components addressed in the initial intervention.

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Table 2.

Intervention modifications.

(A) Modelling of engaged reading and reading for pleasure
Intervention/modifications description	Data collected and analysed
Initial intervention: Weekly book talks –Described in Initial Intervention	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions
Modification: Author studies –Teacher began doing author studies (extensive reading and exploration of books by the same author) based on the students' most frequently checked-out books	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions, teacher plan book, documentation of checked-out books
Modification: Book party –Students proposed (without teacher prompting) celebrating the end of the semester with a book exchange. Students brought in a ‘loved’ book to trade.	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions
Modification: Book awards ceremony –Students created categories, nominated and voted for favourite books. Script was created for a Book Awards Ceremony to celebrate favourite books and authors.	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions, artefacts from nominations, voting and ceremony script
(B) Self-selected reading with a wide range of choices for genre and topic
Intervention/modifications Description	Data collected and analysed
Initial intervention: Students select 6 books weekly from a 500-book library –Described in Initial Intervention	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions, documentation of checked-out books
Modification: Increased access to diverse books –Added a monthly subscription of Kids Time and National Geographic magazines, 50 new nonfiction books, increased self-selected number to 10 books	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions, documentation of checked-out books
Modification: Enquiry projects –Self-selected reading, research and sharing on informational topics of interest	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions, student artefacts (note-taking, reading responses, poster/research creation)
Modification: Collaborative book shopping –Introduced routines to get attention of peers during book shopping to ask for recommendations, book locations and share books with peers during collaborative book shopping	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions
(C) Partner reading opportunities with discussion support
Intervention/modifications Description	Data collected
Initial: Partner reading and book talks –Described in Initial Intervention	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions
Modification: Partner coaching –Provided instruction for coaching opportunities during partner reading (strategies for supporting emerging partner reading to discuss and facilitate more fluent reading)	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions
Modification: Partner discussions –Provided instruction for discussing meaning making and comprehension strategy documentation during and after partner reading	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions
Modification: Discussion groups –Purchased text sets (6 copies) of books based on students’ interests. Created interest-based, self-selected small groups to read and conduct weekly discussion groups about the same text (fiction and informational)	Video recordings, Voxer reflections, field notes, teacher/researcher open-ended planning sessions

We suggest that the modifications supported student interests and offered choice in high-quality texts that provided opportunities for supporting literacy engagement among young children. Our results (explained below) indicate that, when provided support and modelling, these 28 young children established a strong community of practice that engaged each other in meaningful literacy experiences. The following sections provide findings related to students’ demonstrated positive view of reading.

Positive talk

The code of positive talk refers to students engaging in conversations with each other that reflected positive, excited and animated views of authors, reading, books or book discussions. In end of year interviews, students uniformly reported positive views of reading, discussion time and their own identities as readers. Morgan explained that she ‘warms up’ her brain before reading by picturing the words and that ‘it gets me all excited to read, and that’s why I love going to school … I like to read’. When asked what he learned in first grade, Ethan responded, ‘I learned that reading is really fun.’ When we followed up by asking if he was a good reader, he replied, ‘Good. Really, really good.’ Another student said that his favourite part of school was ‘learning to do fun stuff’, and when pressed for an example, he elaborated that, in first grade, they ‘read fun stories’. When asked why people read, Maria simply explained ‘because it’s fun to read’. Desiree reflected on the evident enthusiasm and social sharing about books during the literacy block when she said, ‘We like to read and be quiet, but we’re a little loud. That’s because we like to read!’ These representative interview quotes reflect students’ positive associations with reading and their experience of it as a joyful time.

Students also provided spontaneous examples of their joy in reading. After partner reading, Alexander approached the teacher, gave her a big hug and said, ‘I love reading so much!’ On another occasion, Amena, during partner reading, told her partners to quit playing around because ‘I really, really want to read.’ During a small group discussion, Alexis burst out with, ‘I love talking about books.’ Notwithstanding, at the end of another discussion group, Eloise was afraid they would not have time to read independently, and she asked, ‘Will we ever get to read our books?’

As a final example of students’ evident positive view of books and reading, the teacher shared in a reflection the following overheard conversation:

Alexander and Ethan were talking about the book fair. Alexander asks Ethan, ‘Hey, when you went to the book fair, did you get books or toys?’ Ethan looks at him with this look of disgust and was like ‘Books obviously’ … Alexander responds, ‘Well, I got books, but I got a toy eraser, too.’ Ethan justifies, ‘Well, it’s okay because at least you got a book, too.’

Favourite author/genre

Favourite author/genre findings are related to students’ discussions about their favourite author or specific genre of reading they enjoy (nonfiction, fiction, ABC etc.). Students regularly discussed their favourite authors and types of books, and this evolved over the course of the year. At the beginning of the year, many students could not name a single author. In end of year interviews, all students were quickly able to name a favourite author and book. For example, Orin immediately shared that he loved Dav Pilkey with no prompting and shared a title even when he was just asked for an author. Students were also clear about articulating books and authors that they enjoyed, particularly when asked about their book choices. For example, the teacher expressed concern to Morgan that she used too many fix-up strategies while reading Frog and Toad are Friends (Lobel, 1970) and suggested it might not be a ‘good fit’ yet. Morgan responded, ‘It’s a good fit because I love it!’

We collected data on students’ weekly book selections and found that Mo Willems was the most frequently checked-out author with 8% of all books checked out. The second most frequently checked out author was Melvin Berger, a nonfiction author, with 4%. In addition to our data collection for checked-out books, the students conducted a Kids’ Book Choice Awards ceremony. This ceremony included students creating categories, nominating books and authors, voting for favourites and reporting/performing the ceremony. Students selected presenters based on their demonstrated love of that category. For example, the ceremony script read, ‘And now to present the winner for best nonfiction is our class fact guy, Mateo.’ Mateo read the nominees, opened the envelope and announced the winner as the students began cheering with some jumping up and down. See Figure 1. OPEN IN VIEWER

This section demonstrates how, as the year progressed, students moved from not knowing authors or having reading preferences to strong opinions about what types of reading they enjoyed. Their documentation of favourite authors and genres was evident in literature discussions, partner reading, interviews and teacher and researcher observations. This development of an identity as a reader who has preferences and knowledge about reading they enjoy further facilitated the development of a positive view of reading.

Resistance

Resistance to stopping reading refers to students’ preference to continue to read over transitioning to other activities or complaints about stopping reading to do other activities. Evan demonstrated this disposition multiple times. When asked to share his sticky notes that documented his thinking, he did not want to put down the book he had moved onto for fear that he would lose his spot. He tried to keep that book open while simultaneously locating the sticky notes that the researcher wanted to see. On another occasion, he attempted to say the pledge of allegiance, a typical patriotic morning routine in US public schools, along with the morning announcements while continuing to hold and read his book (see Figure 2). And finally, this vignette from our research journal shows the extent to which Evan was resistant to stopping reading, even when he needed to in order to take care of personal needs:

Evan was standing up during partner reading, so the teacher asked him to sit down. He said he didn’t want to get Morgan’s chair wet. The teacher asked him why that would happen, and he told her he had an accident. She asked him why and what happened and reminded him that he can go to the bathroom whenever he needs, and he told her, ‘It was during read to self, and I didn’t want to stop reading.’ Although we don’t want kids peeing their pants, I would say he was engaged in his reading. OPEN IN VIEWER

A different student experienced developing behaviour issues throughout the year. Near the end of the year, he reached a point where he was often unwilling to participate in activities, but his teacher reflected that he was always willing to read and often unwilling to stop: ‘He would read all day and do nothing else. I can’t get him to do anything in class. There’s some times we’re doing maths, and I see him, he’s got a book, and he’s under the table reading it.’

Other students voiced desires to continue their reading. The teacher in this class used a set of chimes to indicate that reading time had ended, and it was not uncommon to hear groans when she rang the chimes. One time a student called out, ‘Can we just finish reading this book real quick?’ Although students stated that they enjoyed discussion groups, they did not like the groups to interfere with their independent and partner reading. At the conclusion of one group, Sophia said, ‘Please don’t tell me that we don’t get to do read to self too.’ Finally, Mateo secretly had a book under his desk during morning message, and the teacher had to tell him to put it away and participate in the message.

These data points reflect times when students preferred to continue reading, refused to stop reading in order to participate in other activities or expressed a desire to not have their reading time curtailed by other activities. We seldom observed that students were eager to stop reading or that they quickly put away books, happy that reading time was over. The examples cited in this section from video data and research journals reflect typical days in the classroom literacy block. Our observational checklists show that students spent the independent reading block overwhelmingly engaged in literacy activities (80% of observed behaviours were on-task, and another 7% were transitional as students switched books), and that off-task behaviour occurred rarely and did not persist after adult redirection.

Student-selected

Student-selected refers to students choosing to read over other options. Midway through the school year, the students had earned a reward party for good behaviour during special-area classes. They could select the party they wanted, and potential choices included a movie and popcorn, an ice cream or a pizza party. As the class was brainstorming, Alexander suggested, ‘How about a reading party?’ The others were excited and agreed it would be fun. Similarly, at the end of the year after doing the book-awards show, the teacher told the students they would have an ‘after party’ where they got to read their books outside. Students cheered, and no one requested that they just have the extra outside time without books.

At this school, students received breakfast in the classroom every morning and had time for social conversation with their friends. However, as the year went on, some students began to skip part or all of their breakfast or social time to move onto reading earlier. Mateo skipped breakfast the day that a new book about megalodons arrived. The teacher shared this reflection about the anticipation of the book’s arrival:

Mateo was talking about the megalodon shark again and about how curious he was about all these questions he was pondering. I went over to him, and I told him that you had bought a book about megalodons and that we would have it on Tuesday, so he could read learn, and share with the class. Then, at the end of the day, he goes, ‘Mrs. Ogden, waiting is just not easy.’ I said, ‘I know, what’s going on?’ He said, ‘I really can’t wait for my megalodon book to get here so I can learn all about megalodon.’

Social

The social findings are related to social interactions and considerations surrounding reading (for example: students recommending and/or saving books for friends, discussion-group negotiations and celebrations, and a book-exchange party). At the beginning of the year, students demonstrated a more isolated and school-based view of reading. In typical responses, they reported in the initial interviews that good readers ‘stay in your spot and read’ (Logan), ‘read stuff and say the right words’ (Alexis) and ‘read quietly’ (Eloise). However, this perception changed over the course of the year. In this section, we provide documentation that illustrates students came to view reading as a part of their social community by selecting books for each other, helping each other find books of interest and offering books as a means to make amends. Students got to know each other as readers and saving, recommending and sharing books became a central part of their social interactions within the community of practice, as we show here.

Reading developed into a social act that involved sharing experience. This took many different forms ranging from partner reading to discussion groups to book recommendations to documenting thinking during independent reading to share with the class during a literature circle. Because of these practices, students knew each other’s reading preferences. For example, after a book-shopping session, we asked Evan if he selected some good books during shopping. He said, ‘All but one.’ Surprised, we asked him why he had picked a book he did not like. He responded, ‘Well, I don’t like Mo Willems, but Mateo (his reading partner) wasn’t here yet when we were shopping, and he loves Mo Willems, so I grabbed one before they were all gone.’

These instances of considerate sharing, holding and finding books for peers happened on a regular basis. In weekly book shopping, students browsed for books, recommended books and helped classmates find books of interest. At the end of the year, the following interaction transpired that included student questioning, support, sharing and discussion about text selection:

Mateo: Class, class.

Class: Yes, yes.

Mateo: Does anyone have an insect book?

Teacher: An insect book?

Student: I have an insect book.

Student: You can look on the shelf.

Eloise: I have an insect book. (quickly going to get it and handing it to Mateo)

Ariana: I have an insect book. (She gives him the book, and he flips through it.)

Logan: Class, class.

All: Yes, yes.

Logan: Where’s the The Three Ninja Pigs?

Beck: The Three Little Pigs or The Three Ninja Pigs?

(Logan was then referred to basket 12 to find the book).

Reading, thinking and talking about books became a joyful part of the classroom, so much so that books even became an apology offering within this community of readers. For example, Beck had been disruptive and was reprimanded for disturbing others’ learning and reading experiences. On the next day, he brought an apology note for the teacher saying he was ‘really sorry for all the bad stuff I did’ and that he hoped she would forgive him. With the note, he also gave a new book on space from home and said that he thought the class might enjoy it. The book was his way of making amends, acknowledging that reading is such an important part of the class that bringing a book would demonstrate that he was sorry and wanted to make things better.

Students shifted from having a perception at the beginning of the year that reading is an independent, school-based activity to viewing reading as a reward (and selecting it for a party over pizza and a movie) and social activity that is shared with other members of the classroom community of readers.

Research question 1: Modifications to support a positive view of reading

The formative experiment format encouraged the teacher and researchers to think imaginatively and responsively about literacy instruction. The intervention changed as the teacher and researchers improvised ways to respond to the interests and needs of young children learning to love reading. Further, the emphasis on joyful learning promoted equitable instruction for young learners. English learners and students living in poverty often do not receive the rich and meaningful experiences with texts and discussion that students attending more affluent schools do (Allington, 1991; Darling-Hammond, 1995).

In this study, reading time was modified to provide increased time to read. Removing word work, writing and audiobooks (from the morning literacy block, not from the school day entirely) gave the students uninterrupted independent and partner reading time. It encouraged students to become well-acquainted with children’s literature, to develop tastes as readers and to interact with one another about reading. Adding small-group literature discussions, book spotlights and book parties enabled the children to experience literacy as a social event and provided the opportunity to articulate thinking about books and listen and respond to others’ thinking. Providing non-fiction text at accessible levels and conducting author studies motivated students and increased the volume of reading across a variety of genres.

Research question 2: Evidence of a developing positive view of reading

As a class, this diverse group responded to the interventions with a positive view of reading. Students took up independent and partner reading with on-task behaviour; they participated in literary discussions around common texts; and they made talk about books a part of their social interactions in the classroom community. Their positive talk about reading, developing preferences for authors and books, resistance to stopping reading, the desire to read over other activities and social interactions demonstrate their positive views toward literacy and show these students took on an identity as readers that developed in response to the intervention.

Contributions

This study contributes to the existing research and field of literacy in two ways. First, this study details the pedagogical intervention design and modification of using research-based strategies to promote engagement as a means of developing positive views of reading. We documented and reported the progression of continued instructional modifications over the course of the year to better support the development of joyful reading. This included factors that enhanced and inhibited progress toward the goal and qualitative data related to students’ responses to the intervention. These findings build on and extend the current body of research on engagement, motivation and views of reading. This study also addresses the methodological challenges of qualitative-based formative studies related to enjoyment and views of reading with young children. We provide additional considerations and methods of data collection and analysis for examining young children’s positive views of reading. This more in-depth approach to coding schemes and analysis adds to the current body of research that typically focuses on interviews, surveys and observational checklists.

Research implications

Although joyful reading and fostering positive perceptions about reading among young learners is often overlooked in the research literature, we argue that these considerations lead to engaged communities of readers. We encourage researchers to move beyond interviews and surveys with young children to provide in-depth analysis of how students demonstrate developing views of reading. Further research may explore the teacher-training and support necessary to create classroom conditions conducive to developing a positive view of reading and the ways that different student populations respond to such interventions.

Limitations

The design of this study did not emphasize the collection of quantitative data on students' reading achievement. Furthermore, the lack of experimental control prevents us from claiming student gains in reading achievement as a result of the interventions to develop a positive view of reading described here. Future research may address this limitation by methodically collecting achievement data in tandem with data (such as surveys and questionnaires) related to reading engagement. In our study, based on the previous theoretical work of the engaged reading framework that has shown a strong link between reading engagement and ultimate reading achievement (Guthrie et al., 2012), we aimed to develop attitudes among the students that would contribute to positive reading engagement. The implications of this study lie in instructional practices that teachers may adopt in order to develop a positive view of reading among students.

Our study also did not explore factors out of school that affect student engagement, and such socio-ecological factors do have an impact (Lawson and Lawson, 2013). We did not explore engagement separately for students of different racial backgrounds or English proficiency levels. Rather, our study explored the ways in which a diverse group of learners established a community of practice and developed a positive view of reading together.

Finally, we believe that the teacher was a major factor contributing to the success of this formative experiment. We do not suggest that access to books, time to read and discussion alone would produce the same results in all first-grade classrooms. Rather, the support, scaffolding, modelling, expertise and management provided by the teacher ensured the success of the intervention. Thus, teacher factors are a crucial consideration in the success of work designed to increase engagement and positive attitudes towards reading.