During the past decade we have seen a clear trend of decreasing amounts of leisure-time as well as school-related reading among adolescents, in Sweden (Statens medieråd, 2021; Vinterek et al., 2020) and in other parts of the western world (Clark & Travainen-Goff, 2020; Twenge et al., 2018). From previous studies we also know that, whereas students’ leisure-time reading is mainly driven by their intrinsic or autonomous motivation (Cox & Guthrie, 2001; Troyer et al., 2018; Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997), their school-related reading amount is dependent on more external, instruction-related factors such as scheduled reading time and access to a wider selection of texts (Ivey & Broddus, 2001), factors which, in turn, have the potential to increase students’ more autonomous motivation as they develop a stronger reading self-concept (Tegmark et al., 2022).
However, what types of reading activities that actually take place in Swedish compulsory school and how they relate to different types of instructional practices are still largely unexplored areas of research. Hence, the main objective of the present study is to better understand the relation between teachers’ instructional practice and students’ reading activities. Is it possible to find patterns in teachers’ instructional practice that can help us understand why more reading is done in some classrooms compared to others? The goal is not to find the best instructional practice that makes students read the most, but to identify common denominators (instruction related factors) among those teachers who manage to make their students read more than one whole page of connected text per class. Similarly, we seek to find out what characterizes those instructional practices where students do not read at all. What do the students do to learn instead of reading, and what is it in the teacher’s instructional practice that seems to be missing in order for reading of connected text to take place?
The study is theoretically framed by Self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2020) and its differentiation between different types of autonomous (self-determined) and controlled motivation, which, in turn, are dependent on the degree to which the social environment (such as the classroom) manages to fulfill the basic psychological needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy.
The study is conducted through a mixed-methods design including large-scale classroom observations in Grades 6 and 9 (59 lessons, 14 schools), which have been analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our results suggest that even though the relationship between teachers’ instructional practice and students’ reading activities is complex and context dependent, it is possible to identify certain key features that cannot be ignored if the current trend of decreased school reading is to be turned around. The results are discussed in relation to recent developments in both policy and practice in the Nordic countries.
School of Education, University of Iceland , 2022. p. 577-578
reading instruction, reading amount, reading motivation, self-determination theory