Can Teenagers be Motivated to Read Literature?
Journal
The Reading Matrix
Date Issued
September 2009
Author(s)
Abstract
Over the last years, in many countries worldwide, there has been a decline in the reading skills
of upper secondary school students, and their ability to read and understand advanced
literature. Seeing this as an alarming change for the worse, governments, educational bodies
and interested groups have taken various measures to address the issue. Five schools in five
European countries—Italy, Lithuania, Sweden, Finland and Cyprus—have decided to take
measures against the students’ inability and unwillingness to read literature. Their 2007-2009
Comenius ALCUIN project (Active Literacy: Competence and Understanding, Internally
Naturalised–From Decoding to Understanding) aimed to develop reading methods which would
motivate students to develop their reading skills, make them competent readers and users of their
mother tongue as well as English as a second language. It also aimed to help them address more
demanding texts, and also enable them to analyse and critically evaluate literary texts of various
genres as well as European perspectives, and degrees of sophistication. This evaluative article
aims to establish whether the first four new pedagogical methods used in the first year of the
project in the five high schools have managed to motivate students in reading literature.
of upper secondary school students, and their ability to read and understand advanced
literature. Seeing this as an alarming change for the worse, governments, educational bodies
and interested groups have taken various measures to address the issue. Five schools in five
European countries—Italy, Lithuania, Sweden, Finland and Cyprus—have decided to take
measures against the students’ inability and unwillingness to read literature. Their 2007-2009
Comenius ALCUIN project (Active Literacy: Competence and Understanding, Internally
Naturalised–From Decoding to Understanding) aimed to develop reading methods which would
motivate students to develop their reading skills, make them competent readers and users of their
mother tongue as well as English as a second language. It also aimed to help them address more
demanding texts, and also enable them to analyse and critically evaluate literary texts of various
genres as well as European perspectives, and degrees of sophistication. This evaluative article
aims to establish whether the first four new pedagogical methods used in the first year of the
project in the five high schools have managed to motivate students in reading literature.
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
papadima-sophocleous2.pdf
Size
217.66 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
2fe2dc69a4c590223809aab3d4d3a8d8