Compared to the Hungarian, and to the European approach generally, there are two new levels in lower and upper secondary education in Figure 3.1. It is easy to acknowledge that the Hungarian education system could meet social expectations more effectively with this approach, and it could integrate research fi ndings into practice adequately. Compared to the cur-rent Hungarian system, the two major differences appearing in Figure 3.1 are the presence of the top two levels, strategy-oriented and adaptive/
critical reading. By the introduction of these levels, the harmful view of relegating reading instruction to a task for elementary education and as the competence and responsibility of the teachers there could be abandoned.
Examining the relation between reading and learning, three forms ap-pear. First, there is learning to read, where the goal is to acquire the skill of reading. Second, there is learning through reading, where reading is a tool. Third, (and this is a rather neglected area as yet) there is learning about reading, and the emphasis on this aspect can result in the develop-ment of the previous two processes as well. Interactions are present in the relations between these aspects, so that the development of either will positively impact the other two. The curricular and disciplinary di-mension of reading can also be defi ned in all three areas (Steklács, 2011).
Research on early childhood literacy has made it clear that the evolu-tion of reading motivaevolu-tion is strongly determined by the period before school age (Szenczi, 2010). The richness of stimuli in the linguistic and literary environment surrounding the child is important, as are the liter-acy-related attitudes and habits of the family, as well as what the educa-tional institutes (the crèche and the kindergarten) are able add. The en-joyment of listening to books, tales and stories can strengthen the moti-vation towards mastery in reading (Józsa, 2007a). Thus, it is also impor-tant what tales and what storytellers children are exposed to prior to school age.
The experiences of learning to read in the fi rst years of school have a particular signifi cance. Not only do they have a major role in shaping attitudes to reading, but they are also defi nitive in the development of general motives related to school and learning. Chapman & Tunmer (2002) emphasize the role of early reading self-concept in the formation of academic self-concept. They found that the successes and failures experienced by children in the early phase of their learning to read have a central role in their academic concept, and that academic self-concept affects subsequent academic performance (Guay, Marsh, &
Boivin, 2003; Van Damme, Opdenakker, de Fraine, & Mertens, 2004).
Accordingly, early reading self-concept can determine academic success.
The development of reading ability in itself is not suffi cient for develop-ing readdevelop-ing motivation. In readdevelop-ing instruction, the facilitation of readdevelop-ing motives is essential in addition to ability development (Guthrie, Hoa, Wigfi eld, Tonks, Humenick, & Littles, 2006). Reading motivation is a complex system of several elements. Its components, on the one hand, are the reading-specifi c equivalents of motives described in the literature of learning motivation, such as reading self-effi cacy, reading goals, per-ceived control in reading, interest in reading, and reading self-concept.
On the other hand, the social motives of reading as a joint activity also be-long here (Szenczi, 2010; Wigfi eld, Guthrie, Tonks, & Perencevich, 2004).
The school context and the classroom atmosphere bear on students’
reading motivation, and thus on the success of acquiring reading ability (Kelly, 2003). The 2001 PIRLS survey listed the school factors affecting reading motivation and ability development: (1) school environment and resources of reading, (2) training characteristics and attitudes of teachers, (3) classroom environment and structure, (4) home/school connectedness,
(5) instructional strategies and activities, (6) supplementary instructional materials, learning materials and technologies, (7) characteristics of evaluation (Kelly, 2003; Mullis, Kennedy, Martin, & Sainsbury, 2006).
Similarly to the family and the social context, the quantity and quality of the environment and the available resources at school also affect the reading habits, frequency and preferences of children (McQuillan & Au, 2001). Examining the school context of reading ability, the 2001 PIRLS survey also included questions about the number of books available for children in classrooms and in school libraries. In an international com-parison, Hungary was at the lower end of the rank order in this respect.
While there are more than 500 books in 96% of the classrooms in Ice-land and in 76% in Sweden, this ratio in Hungary is but a fraction of the former (Mihály, 2003).
The emergence of engagement in reading in classroom environments is facilitated most by the following: setting appropriate learning object-ives, more realistic tasks, supporting learner autonomy, teaching interest-ing texts and readinterest-ing strategies, providinterest-ing opportunities for cooperation, the appropriate degree of involvement by the teacher, the appropriate tools and methods of rewarding and evaluation, and establishing coherence among the strategies and methods applied (Mullis, Martin, Kennedy, Trong, & Sainsbury, 2009).
Regarding the development of reading motivation, the model of the PIRLS survey relies upon fi ve basic motives. These are (1) mastery of goals of reading, (2) perceived control and autonomy in reading, (3) reading self-effi cacy, (4) social motives for reading and (5) the intrinsic motivation of reading. The methods for developing motives are illus-trated with the principles of the Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) program, based on the above model, from the works of Guthrie and Wigfi eld (2000), Guthrie and Cox (2001) as well as Guthrie, McRae and Klauda (2007).
If students’ primary aspiration while reading is understanding, they mainly pursue mastery goals. Pursuing mastery goals usually results in higher achievement (Meece, Anderman, & Anderman, 2006; Meece & Mil-ler, 2001). In the classroom, pursuing mastery goals is enabled by setting clear learning objectives and embedding reading development into cur-ricular contents. Development embedded in curcur-ricular contents helps reading to become a tool in knowledge acquisition. Accordingly, reading
always serves the achievement of certain specifi c goals, which goals can be realized through the comprehension of texts, i.e. through reading.
Students’ feeling of being in control of their behaviour and actions, i.e. their feeling of autonomy, also affects reading performance (Sweet, Guthrie, & Ng, 1998). Students’ feeling of autonomy can be primarily enhanced by offering real opportunities for making choices and deci-sions. Several methods are available in the classroom to enhance student autonomy, such as a free choice of topics or texts, expressing opinions about texts, selecting the passages to be read, formulating questions, etc.
(Assor, Kaplan, & Roth, 2002).
Turner (1995, 1997) distinguishes two types of reading tasks: open and closed ones. A characteristic of open tasks is that they are chosen by the students and require the use of different strategies. Another important characteristic of such texts is that children fi nd them interesting. An open reading task is, for example, if students experience an interesting phe-nomenon, e.g., watch a video about the duckbilled platypus. They formu-late their own questions about it. Then they can choose from different texts to answer the questions, and they have to fi nd the answers in the texts using their own strategies.
In contrast, closed tasks are much more limited regarding what they require students to do. An example for a closed task is students reading a piece of text the topic and type of which have been selected by the teacher, and they answer the teacher’s questions using the methods and strategies offered by the teacher (e.g., underline the adjectives in the text that describe the platypus.) Turner (1997) found that in classes where teachers gave more open reading tasks to students, children reported a higher level of motivation than in classes where closed tasks dominated.
Experience shows that closed tasks are prevalent in the majority of Hun-garian schools. An increase in reading motivation levels might be ex-pected if the practice of Hungarian reading instruction incorporated more open tasks.
Reading self-effi cacy refers to students’ judgment of how well they would perform on a specifi c reading task, such as reading a word. Stu-dents with high self-effi cacy fi nd diffi cult reading tasks challenging and work hard on completing them (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1997). Their study also highlights that teachers’ responses have a key role in the formation of self-effi cacy. Regular and individualised feedback help students to see
their abilities realistically and set realistic goals. Teachers’ evaluations and reinforcements should primarily be related to the effort and not to the actual performance. Experiences of success in reading also contribute to the development of self-effi cacy. It is the teacher’s task to create ap-propriate conditions for this to happen. In order to ensure that every student experiences success, students at different developmental levels of reading ability need to be given texts of different diffi culties, but, if pos-sible, on the same topic. This way, students can contribute equally to group work, while processing texts that are optimally challenging for them, and are close to their own development level. In addition to co-operation, the teaching of reading strategies also has a positive impact on self-effi cacy, as detailed above.
The comprehensive study of Wigfi eld, Eccles and Rodrigues (1997) discussed the school factors infl uencing learning motives. Of these, the study mentions e.g., the atmosphere of the class and of the lessons, the characteristics of group dynamics in class as well as the composition of the group. The class as a group in the psychological sense impacts read-ing motivation through the social motives of readread-ing. These social mo-tives are related to sharing reading experiences with others (Wigfi eld, Guthrie, & McGough, 1996). The solution of reading tasks with the co-operation of students can generate productive social situations. When students have the opportunity to share their questions, points of interest from the text and newly acquired information with their classmates, this has a positive infl uence on their intrinsic motivation and self-effi cacy as well (Gambrell, Mazzoni, & Almasi, 2000).
Intrinsic motivation is generated from the joy found in the activity it-self, here in reading. There is a clear positive correlation between intrin-sic motivation and the developmental level of reading ability (Wigfi eld &
Guthrie, 1997). There are several ways a teacher can facilitate intrinsic motivation related to reading. One is evoking curiosity and supporting the emergence of interest. Embedding reading exercises in content offers an opportunity for associating the reading activity with other, interesting, realistic tasks or activities, such as acting out the readings. Most children enjoy animated and realistic activities. The initial interest thus created may easily mature into a relatively longer-term interest (Hidi & Rennin-ger, 2006). Animated, realistic activities also provide a good opportunity for students to formulate their own questions, and to seek answers to
them through reading. For example, after a walk at the zoo, children may have many questions about the life, habits and biology of animals. They can fi nd the answers to their questions through reading relevant and in-teresting texts. The genres of the texts may be various, ranging from children’s encyclopaedias to books of poetry even. Knowledge gained from experience and from texts will thus complement each other and generate active learning.
This section has given a review of reading motives and the possible methods of their development. Strong reading motivation is not equal with the dominance of one motive. It is rather an optimally developed system of motives with multiple components, enabling adaptive adjust-ment to the environadjust-ment, here the learning environadjust-ment. Naturally, teachers have a key role in shaping reading motives (Józsa, 2007a).