The Missouri Reader Vol. 36, Issue 1 | Page 47

model provided by NBA players makes him
believe ―if you want to teach children to read,
you have to be able to read.‖
Easiest books and hardest books. The students
pinpointed books that are easiest for them to read
as well as books they felt hardest to read. The
easiest books include: graphic novels, poems,
Goosebumps series, short chapter books,
magazines, and books with no hard words. Their
hardest books are: thick books with small print,
big books, hard-to-understand long poetry, long
chapter books, boring or tedious books, and hard
books that have hard words.

What are their reading interests?
Books that attract me. In general, a book that is
attractive to them is one that grabs their attention
and keeps them wondering what is going to
happen next. To be specific, they enjoy reading
mystery (mentioned by three students), sports
(mentioned by two), funny books (mentioned by
two), animal books, horror, history, and The
Lightning Thief (because of the Greek mythology
in it).
Books I would recommend to friends. The books
they would recommend their friends to read are
related to what attracts them. Some gave the
exact titles of books and some provided general
information such as genre and topic: mystery
(mentioned by two), sports (mentioned by two
students), horror/scary books (mentioned by
two), chapter books, action/adventure (e.g.,
Harry Potter, The Last Hero), The Music of Dolphins,
The Lighting Thief, and The Hunger Games.
If I could read anything. Ben desired to read
Stephen King series if he could read anything
because he loves horror stories. Dan, who wants
to be an NBA player, would read sports books,
such as a biography on LeBron James. He would
also like to read biographies on Barack Obama
and Martin Luther King Jr. Kyle looked forward
to reading a book series that has at least five or six
long books in it. Nathan would like to read books
on hockey and James would like to read
adventure and mystery books.
My favorite books. Similar to recommended
books to friends, some students identified exact

titles as their favorite books and some provided
their favorite genres or topics. Their favorite
books include: The Cat in the Hat, a book series
called The Missing, Goosebumps, The Music of
Dolphins, Island of the Blue Dolphins, books on
hockey, short or middle-length chapter books,
Erec Rex series, magazines, comics in newspapers,
and biographies on Barack Obama and Martin
Luther King Jr.
My favorite author(s). Four of the six children
were able to identify their favorite authors. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. is Noah‘s favorite author.
Ben likes Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe
because these two authors are ―masters of horror‖
and he loves horror. Dan liked Dr. Seuss when he
was little. Because Goosebumps series is one of
Kyle‘s favorite books, the author of this series –
R. L. Stine automatically becomes his favorite
author. Nathan and James however, could not
name their favorite authors.

What do they like to read vs. what are
used to teach reading?
We presented a checklist containing twentytwo different types of reading materials and asked
the students to identify what they like to read. In
the following interview question, we presented
the same list and asked the students to select the
materials their teachers used to teach reading.
We counted the number of students who
responded ―yes,‖ ―sometimes,‖ or ―no‖ to each
type of reading material in both questions and
provide the results in Table 1. Students ‘ top
preferences are: magazines, song lyrics, book
series, websites, manuals/instructions, fiction,
and travel books. These reading materials were
chosen by five or more students with the first two
(magazines and song lyrics) selected by all six of
them. On the other hand, they are least
interested in reading plays, poetry, and
encyclopedias. These items were chosen by two
or fewer participants. Plays was not picked by
any of them. In terms of teacher choice, factual
books, dictionaries, poetry, encyclopedias, and
posters/signs topped the list and were chosen by
at least five students. The materials least often
used by their teachers are: emails, text messages,
© The Missouri Reader, 36 (1) p.47