Reading the Reading Research: Teachers' Reading Habits & Instructional Practices

Barb Novak contributed this post. Click here to access more of Literacy Booth thinking about research.

Note. I'm sharing this study simply to give access to how I process research when I read - how I organize my thinking before, during, and after reading research. This post is not intended to be an endorsement of the research or its conclusions.

"Does Johnny's Reading Teacher Love to Read? How Teachers' Personal Reading Habits Affect Instructional Practices"

Sharon S. McKool & Suzanne Gespass (2009)

Click here to access to full record on BadgerLink. BadgerLink does not have the full-text of this article. Share the citation above with your librarian to access the full-text.

Why this article?

I read this to put some quantitative science behind something I (along with others I adore, such as Donalyn Miller, Pernille Ripp, and Matt Renwick) talk about often - the need for teachers to identify as readers and share their reading lives with their students. To show support for this idea, we begin every month at The Literacy Booth by talking about what we're reading.

Research Questions:

This study investigated (quoted exactly from p. 265):

1. Do reading teachers engage in reading as a leisure time activity?
2. Do teachers who read for pleasure use more instructional strategies associated with best practice than teachers who do not read for pleasure.
3. Is there a difference between the instructional practices used by teachers who value reading in their own lives and those who do not?
4. Is there a difference between teachers who read for pleasure and those who do not in terms of how they motivate students to read?

Methods:

A survey was distributed to 105 and completed by 65 classroom teachers (collection rate of 62%) from New Jersey, Florida, and Texas. The participants "taught reading as one of several subjects" daily (p. 266) in grades four (23 respondents), five (26 respondents), and six (16 respondents). Sites were selected based on relationships with the researchers.

Respondents, all of which were female, had an average of ten years of experience in education. 23% completed master's degrees.

The survey, completed in written form, included four sections:

1. Descriptive data (such as years of experience)
2. Out-of-school activities
3. Instructional practices
4. Personal reading habits and attitudes

There were two additional sections:

• Three-day after-school activity log
• Short answer question about motivating students to read

Main Points:

"The results of this study indicate that teachers who are readers themselves are more likely to engage in instructional practices that model their own passions for reading" (p. 273).

• ". . . while most teachers value reading as a leisure time activity, only a little more than half of the teachers surveyed actually read for more than 10 minutes a day in their free time" (p. 271). 
• "20% of the teachers (or 1 in 5) admitted that they were only somewhat committed or slightly committed readers" (p. 268).
• ". . . there was not a difference between teachers who read for pleasure and those who did not in terms of how they attempted to motivate students to read. Almost half of the teachers surveyed in this study, regardless of personal reading habits, reported they primarily used extrinsic rewards to motivate students to read" (p. 272).
• "Teachers reported that they only recommended good books for students to read once or twice a month" (p. 269).
• "The teachers who valued reading in their own lives were more likely to use literacy practices associated with best practice" (p. 269).
• ". . . it is interesting to note that only the teachers who valued reading the most in their own lives reported that they also valued having students participate in daily periods of sustained silent reading at school" (p. 271).
• McKool and Gespass suggest fostering a love of reading beginning with teacher preparation. This love of reading should be considered in hiring and fostered in on-going professional learning, such as book clubs.

Limitations:

The authors suggest ". . . these data and findings should be viewed as exploratory rather than research findings to be generalized" (p. 273) because:

• The sample size (65) was small, homogeneous, and not randomly selected.
• Data was self-reported and not triangulated.

Discussion:

The article includes the full questionnaire administered for this research. It would be helpful for others wishing to administer a similar survey.

Also, this article would provide a nice introduction to reading research. It is carefully written in a traditional research format and very transparent about findings and limitations.

Full Citation:

McKool, S.S., & Gespass, S. (2009). Does Johnny's reading teacher love to read? How teachers' personal reading habits affect instructional practices. Literacy Research and Instruction, 48, 265 - 276. doi: 10.1080/19388070802443700