| This research documented children, parents and teachers' beliefs about reading. Specifically, this study described children, parents and teachers': (1) definitions about reading, (2) beliefs about how they learned to read, (3) purposes for reading and (4) relationships between participants' reading perspective in comparison with current/historical reading instructional methods. Participants included 47 children in grades 1, 3 and 5 from an urban Catholic school, their parents and classroom teachers. The 93 participants were interviewed about their reading experiences using the questions, "What is reading?," "How do you think you (your child) learned to read?" and "Why do you read?" In addition, the teachers' classrooms were observed during reading or language arts instruction and artifacts were collected. Transcripts from interviews were coded and analyzed for categories of responses. Data from interviews, observations and artifacts were triangulated revealing several themes. First, results indicated that children, parents and teachers predominately agree on defining reading as an action/skill. Second, participants indicated learning to read through formal and informal experiences with children reporting a high frequency of formal reading experiences. Third, purposes for reading were numerous but the majority of participants described at least one recreational/pleasure purpose including reading for fun. Additional themes, implications and future research directions are discussed. |
