Introduction
It is hard to doubt the statement that reading skills are crucial for an individual today. However, many high school learners and even college or university students lack reading skills (Fitzhugh, 2011). In this paper, results of a survey pertaining to reading and administered to high school students will be discussed and analyzed. Based on these results, some recommendations related to high school classroom will be made.
Analysis of the Results
The questionnaire was completed by 16 high school students, 8 of them male and 8–female. The results were gathered and analyzed for patterns and discoveries pertaining to the reading habits and attitudes of students. A number of tendencies are apparent from the analysis.
First, students rarely stated that they disliked reading; their attitudes were somewhat skewed towards the “disagree” option in response to the statement “I hate reading.” Similarly, more students disagreed that “reading is boring and a waste of my time” than not; however, there were some learners who agreed with this statement as well. Interestingly, very few students agreed that they enjoyed going to the library; most responded that they either disagree or strongly disagree with this statement.
Few students agreed that “only nerds like to read.” Simultaneously, the number of respondents who agreed that they read outside of school was greater than the number of learners who liked going to the library, and significantly greater than the number of students who did not dislike reading or thought it boring and a waste of time. Thus, few students explicitly dislike reading or think that it is a waste of time, but the number of students who actually read is also small.
Because the number of students who read outside of school is larger than the number of learners who like going to the library, it might be assumed that students often try to obtain their books elsewhere, e.g., on the Internet. Also, because students stating that they read outside of school did not specify what they read, it is possible to hypothesize that they read different types of materials, for instance, some texts which can be found online or, e.g., in newspapers. This can be confirmed by stressing that some students struggled to remember what the last book that they read was (simultaneously, most of them could name their favorite TV program). Furthermore, only one girl stated that her favorite thing to do during leisure was reading, so students probably do not read very much.
Also, interestingly, girls liked going to the library slightly more than boys. In fact, it is stated that girls, on the average, have better reading skills and more often utilize reading strategies than boys; at the same time, boys often have a better comprehension of scientific texts (O’Reilly & McNamara, 2007). O’Reilly and McNamara (2007) assume that this is because parents are often more inclined to perceive boys as more intelligent than girls, and talk to them about science more often, but girls often show better behaviors at school, which grants them better reading skills and higher GPA.
The differences in the manner the boys and girls are brought up may also have contributed to the fact that boys were more likely to look for help in understanding something which does not make sense to them by using the Internet, whereas the girls were more likely to ask adults.
In addition, although some students stated they read outside of school, almost all students believed they were good readers, even those who confessed that they read only when teachers make them. Similar results were obtained by Hooley, Tysseling, and Ray (2013). It should be emphasized that this poses a serious problem; while students, apparently, often consider themselves good readers and are rather confident regarding their chances of entering a college or university despite the low amount of reading they do, it is noted that nearly 90% of college professors complain that their learners are poorly prepared when it comes to reading (and writing) skills (Fitzhugh, 2011). Clearly, the fact that many students do not read often (as it was noted, only one girl marked reading as her favorite pastime during leisure) contributes to this adverse situation.
It is also noteworthy that most respondents did not like reading aloud, but agreed that they enjoyed being read to. In this regard, it should be stressed that, according to a study by Reed, Swanson, Petscher and Vaughn (2014), asking students to read silently in the classroom or reading to them aloud yields no significant difference in the knowledge of students.
Also, interestingly, quite many of respondents, regardless of the sex, stated that the most important thing about reading is that it might help them do or understand something better. Also, many respondents indicated that being a good reader depends on comprehension, whereas being a good writer depends upon the ability to explain things clearly and interestingly.
As for the career plans, many of the students said they would like to pursue some professional career, such as medicine, engineering, or law; according to the study by Bardick, Bernes, Magnusson, and Witko (2006), nearly half of the students wish to attend full-time studies after high school. Simultaneously, some respondents stated they would like to be businesspersons. Rather few said they would like to pursue blue-collar professions.
Using the Results of the Survey in the Classroom
It is possible to use the obtained results of the study in a high school classroom in a number of ways. First, clearly, it is important to enhance reading skills of students; thus, even though students like being read to, it may be better to ask them to read silently during the lesson, because the learning outcomes are equal (Reed et al., 2014), but asking them to read provides them with additional reading practice which may improve their reading skills.
Second, students should be prompted to read more; in addition, because they like listening to books read to them, it might be advised to provide them with audiobooks to compensate for the dearth of reading. Giving them books or e-books also appears to be a good idea, for they rarely visit libraries.
Third, to stimulate students to read more, their reading skills should also be paid attention to; a number of reading techniques which help learners read complicated texts might be taught. Poole (2010) and Rahimi (2013) state that reading strategies and discourse analysis techniques help foreign learners comprehend English texts better; it might be assumed that similar techniques could help not only those for whom English is a second language but also native speakers of English to do so as well.
In the classroom, the author of this paper will pay more attention to the comprehension of the texts by girls, and to the utilization of reading techniques by boys. In addition, the author will attempt to provide students with clear, easily comprehensible texts, and try to help them see how the information from these texts may be used in the real life. This might also develop the learners’ critical thinking skills.
Conclusion
Therefore, it should be stressed that a number of tendencies were observed after analyzing the survey results. High school students have generally positive attitudes towards reading, but often do not read much and lack reading skills. This situation should be taken into account when planning and creating lessons for a high-school classroom.
References
Bardick, A. D., Bernes, K. B., Magnusson, K. C., & Witko, K. D. (2006). Junior high school students’ career plans for the future. Journal of Career Development, 39(2), 250-271. Web.
Fitzhugh, W. (2011). High school flight from reading and writing. Academic Questions, 24(4), 412-418. Web.
Hooley, D. S., Tysseling, L. A., & Ray, B. (2013). Trapped in a cycle of low expectations: An exploration of high school seniors’ perspectives about academic reading. The High School Journal, 96(4), 321-338. Web.
O’Reilly, T., & McNamara, D. S. (2007). The impact of science knowledge, reading skill, and reading strategy knowledge on more traditional “high-stakes” measures of high school students’ science achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 44(1), 161-196. Web.
Poole, A. (2010). The reading strategies used by male and female English language learners: A study of Colombian high school students. New England Reading Association Journal, 46(1), 55-63, 110. Web.
Rahimi, S. (2013). Promoting the reading comprehension of high-school students through critical discourse analysis. Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 3(4), 56-63. Web.
Reed, D. K., Swanson, E., Petscher, Y., & Vaughn, S. (2014). The effects of teacher read-alouds and student silent reading on predominantly bilingual high school seniors’ learning and retention of social studies content. Reading and Writing, 27(7), 1119-1140. Web.