The Impact of Interest: A Reading Study

Abstract

This article discusses the current negative relationships many middle school students have with reading. Using published scholarship as well as the results of a survey and focus group I conducted in an eighth grade English classroom as evidence, I argue that the disconnect students feel from reading is caused by their misunderstanding of what being a “reader” actually entails. Many students can read with more mastery than they realize and read more often than they are aware. However, because of students’ lack of interest in the topics of the assigned texts in their English classes or their past experiences with struggling to comprehend the unfamiliar terminology in their textbooks, students are increasingly becoming aliterate. The longer these aliterate students, who can read but choose not to, stay on this path, the harder it appears to be to convince them to participate in their courses’ academic reading activities. This presents educators with the task of bringing to light all of the legitimate reading activities students do outside of the school day as well as convincing alleged “non-readers” and aliterate students to more actively participate in the literacy activities in school.