MS Reading survey

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MS Reading survey

• Autumn 2003

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What we did

• We gave all students a set of 11 questions about
  their reading preferences and habits
• We compiled the data by grade, gender and
  language group identified by the student, e.g.
  6th Grade boys, Chinese language
• Most, but not all questionnaires were returned
• The data is very raw - we only have general
  impressions

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Genre preference

• Students checked as many genres as they wished

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Genre preference - Boys

• Genre preference amongst the boys tends to be the
  same across the grade levels with
  action/adventure, humour, comics and fantasy
  topping the choices.
• 6th and 8th grade English language boys showed a
  greater preference for fantasy than Chinese and
  other language boys.
• 7th and 8th grade Chinese language boys showed a
  greater preference for humour than did English or
  other language boys

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Genre preference - Girls

• Among the girls, there is a difference between
  Grades 6 and 8 with Teen fiction figuring more
  prominently in Grade 8
• Fantasy, humour and diaries were most popular for
  Grades 6 and 7
• Results were consistent across different language
  groups

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Genre preference - All students

• There is a marked decrease in numbers of checks
  for humour from Grade 6 to 8
• This may be because of a dearth of appropriate
  materials rather than lack of interest

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Top authors

• J.K. Rowling
• Meg Cabot
• Lois Lowry
• Jacqueline Wilson
• S.E.Hinton
• Philip Pullman
• Louis Sachar
• Bill Watterson

• Lemony Snicket
• Anthony Horowitz
• C.S. Lewis
• Ann Brasheres
• Darren Shan
• J.R.R. Tolkien
• Gail Carson Levine
• Artemis Fowl

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Selection criteria - Boys

• Boys report that they most often choose a book
  based on the jacket or the title or on the
  recommendation of a friend
• Boys may be more likely than girls to read books
  in a series
• Boys may be slightly more likely than girls to be
  influenced by the picture on the cover

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Selection criteria - Girls

• Girls also tend to choose reading material based
  on the jacket blurb
• Recommendations from friends is slightly more
  important to girls than to boys
• Girls are more likely than boys to browse through
  some pages of a book

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Selection criteria - All students

• Across the grades the top influence on student
  reading choices are recommendations from friends,
  followed by title, author, jacket blurbs
• These findings underscore the need to allow
  students to browse and to talk with one another
  about the books that they are reading

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Ideal place for reading

• All students seem to prefer to read at home, on
  their own and in silence
• These results were similar across the grades and
  across gender
• Student behaviour during DEAR times in school
  would support the findings about reading alone
  and in silence

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Time spent reading

• Thirty minutes a day is the maximum that the
  majority of students, both boys and girls spend
  reading across the grades.
• This may reflect the level of interest in reading
  or the impact of the homework load
• Boys in the 8th grade appear to read for much
  longer periods than girls

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Types of reading

• The response to this question was quite low it
  would therefore be difficult to draw any
  conclusions from the data
• Results are the same across gender and grade
  levels

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