Promoting reading 1
likely to read books at least once each week comp
ared with the less educated. At the same time, there are a number of studies that give support to the potential of voluntary reading to generate social mobility. A comprehensive UK study that examined the cognitive effects of reading for pleasure over time points to reading for pleasure in leisure time as more important to children’s learning than parental level of education (Sullivan & Brown 2013). The extensive OECD study Reading for Change (2002), which covered 32 countries, showed similarly that reading engagement in the form of regular reading for pleasure is more important for the reading ability of children and adolescents than their parents’ occupational status. All in all, the report Reading for Change provides strong arguments for voluntary reading as an effective social lever for change. That voluntary reading is associated with a number of social and educational benefits is also confirmed by Clark & Akerman (2006) in their study Social inclusion and reading: an exploration. Reading attitude, reading interest, and reading motivation While reading attitude refers to the feelings and ideas that the individual has about reading and reading interest refers to preferences in terms of genres and subjects, etc., reading motivation is about an internal condition that results in people wanting to read (Clark & Rumbold 2006). Based on these definitions, it is fully possible to have a positive attitude to reading, in combination with a weak or non-existent motivation to read. In fact, this is quite common. The idea that reading is something good and important is widespread among those who choose not to read. The reverse – that is, a negative attitude to reading in combination with a strong motivation to read – is also quite possible, but perhaps less common. A negative reading attitude is commonly accompanied by a low level of reading motivation. For this reason, reading promotion is also about influencing reading attitudes in a positive direction. As has been pointed out many times, the purely cognitive perspective on reading is insufficient: the mere fact that someone has the ability to read, does not mean that he or she will engage in reading. Since reading is a strenuous activity that you can choose to do or not do, motivation is also necessary (Baker & Wigfield 1999). Reading motivation concerns not only those who are already literate; it is also fundamental for learning to read (Verhoeven & Snow 2001). It has hardly gone unnoticed in the research that motivation is of great importance for the development of reading ability, but the relationship between learning to read and reading motivation has not, according to some researchers, received the attention it deserves (Du Toit 2004). American reading researcher Linda Gambrell (2011) has criticized the insufficiency of a school education which only provides students with the ability to decode and understand text: if pupils are unmotivated to read, they will never achieve their full potential in reading and writing ability. At the same time, she perceives an increase in research on reading motivation in the last two decades as a sign of recognition of its important role. Researchers John T. Guthrie and Allan Wigfield (2000) have argued that reading motivation is of central importance to what is termed the Matthew effect, that is, the phenomenon that good readers tend to become better readers, and poor readers tend to become worse: a high level of reading skill increases motivation to read, and a high level of motivation leads to more reading, further improving reading skills. Conversely, a low level of reading 24