A Comparative Study On The Extensive Reading Environment For Urban And Rural Pupils

With an increasing attention paid to the role of extensive reading in education today, the learning environment for extensive reading has emerged as an important research area. Based on the comparative study on the reading environment found in different areas of Yibin City, including the city, the outskirts, and some of the rural areas, this article aims to discover the main gaps existing between urban and rural pupils. Investigation was also carried out to analyze the factors or reasons that have led such gaps regarding the varied reading environments available for the pupils in these three areas. The research, therefore, hopes to explore the possible solutions for improvement, and in particular, to offer suggestions on how the society can work together with schools and families to provide a better extensive reading environment for rural pupils.Research methods such as questionnaires, interviews, observation, as well as comparative study were applied in this empirical research, which systematically studied the learning gaps regarding extensive reading environment among the fifth grade pupils from different parts of the ciy, including Yibin city area, its outskirsts, and the countryside, striving to understand the differences from all sides. Based on the findings and the relevant analysis of the data, this article provides some solutions and suggestions on how to bridge the gaps in society, in schools and in families from the perspectives of physical environment and emotional environment.This paper, consisting of five chapters, discusses the problems concerning the learning environment for extensive reading for urban and rural pupils, and highlights the following three parts: 1) Physical environment such as public cultural facilities in the community, collection of books, reading time and space, and emotional environment such as the support from parents and guidance from teachers are identified as the two major reasons for the actual differences; 2) Different degrees of emphasis put on extensive reading from the leaders at various levels are one of the reasons leading to the gaps in reading environment. More importantly, the lack of support from schools and families should take the major responsibility; 3) In order to shorten the gaps of reading environment existing between urban and rural pupils, measures should be taken to create a better use of the community library both in cities and in rural areas, with better book markets available. Suggestions are also made in this article to improve the general physical and emotional environment for extensive reading in rural areas, such as encouraging the urban and rural reading interaction.