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Differences in the Everyday Reading Practices of Giftedand Non-Gifted Adolescents: Report from a Pilot Study
M Cecil SmithDepartment of Educational Psychology,Counseling, and Special EducationNorthern Illinois UniversityDeKalb, IL 60115(815) 753-8448p30mcs1@niuPaper presented at the annual meeting of the MidWestern EducationalResearch Association, Chicago, IL, October 14-17, 1992.
 
 
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Differences in the Everyday Reading Practices of Giftedand Non-Gifted Adolescents: Report from a Pilot Study
AbstractWe have little knowledge about the everyday reading practices ofsecondary education students and how these practices affect their academicachievement. Everyday reading consists of individuals’ reading activities for avariety of purposes, such as for relaxation or to obtain information Previousresearch has documented that, from middle childhood through adulthood,reading becomes a major component of studying, and much information learnedthrough studying is initially acquired through reading. The everyday readingactivities in which students engage may, therefore, considerably influence theirstudying skills and subsequent academic performance. This pilot studyexamined the everyday reading activities and reading attitudes of gifted andnon-gifted high school students. The results indicated several differences inreading activities between the two groups pertaining to types of materials readand amount of time spent reading.
 
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Differences in the Everyday Reading Practices of Giftedand Non-Gifted Adolescents: Report from a Pilot Study
We currently have little knowledge about the everyday reading practices ofsecondary-level students and how these practices may affect their academicachievement. Everyday reading consists of the reading activities whichindividuals undertake to suit a variety of purposes, such as for relaxation or toobtain information from documents. Previous research has documented that,from middle childhood through adulthood, reading becomes a major componentof studying, and much information learned through studying is initially acquiredthrough reading (Thomas & Rohwer, in press). The everyday reading activitiesof high school students may, therefore, considerably influence their studyingskills and subsequent academic performance. Also, there has been littleresearch concerning how the everyday reading practices of gifted students differfrom non-gifted students (DeVall, 1982; Fehrenbach, 1991). The purpose of thepresent study was to pilot test a data collection tool for gathering informationpertaining to students’ everyday reading and studying activities.Results from two recent studies provide an important basis for the currentstudy. Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding (1988) examined the relationship between5th grade children’s out-of-school activities and reading achievement. 155 Sscompleted, over 26 weeks, daily activity forms, responding to items such as “Ispent __ minutes reading a book.” Data were also obtained on 2nd gradereading achievement to examine changes in reading ability from grades 2-5.Results indicated that most Ss read very little out of school, (i.e., 8-12 minutesper day). Reading books, however, was the single out-of-school activity havingthe strongest relationship with reading skill, and time spent reading bestpredicted Ss’ growth from 2nd to 5th grades.Taylor, Frye, and Maruyama (1990) had 195 5th and 6th grade studentskeep reading logs for a 17-week period to examine the relationship between timespent reading and reading achievement. Students were found to read, onaverage, for nearly 16 minutes in class and for 15 minutes at home. Thecorrelation between reading at home at school achievement was quite modest, r= .16. Regression analyses showed that while in-class reading significantlycontributed to reading achievement; reading at home did not.The divergent findings from these studies leave unanswered the questionof how important everyday, out-of-school reading activity is to academic
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