Reading for Enjoyment: Empowering All Students to Succeed Through Whole-School Reading Programs and Cultures

• In Event: 31.091 - Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: 31.091-8 - The Role of Choice, Stereotype Threat, and Identity in Reading and Literacy Contexts

Abstract

The present study addresses how education praxis, research, and theory, can contribute to more justice, by developing, implementing, and evaluating a whole-school literacy program that enhances students’ reading engagement. This first implementation of a whole-school reading promotion plan in Cyprus, has managed to plant the seed of a reading culture. Three elements of the reading promotion plan worked particularly well: (i) Increased library use; (ii) The whole-school, whole-day event that was devoted exclusively to reading; and (iii) Free Voluntary Reading (FVR). This whole-school reading for enjoyment program had tangible and important benefits for students’ reading habits and attitudes, empowering in this manner diverse students to become lifelong readers and achieve academically.

Authors

• Petros Panaou, Boise State University

• Evi Panaou, Boise State University

• Christiana Aravi, CARDET

• Charalambos Vrasidas, University of Nicosia