2 Reading Engagement for Tweens and Teens teachers do not fully understand the importance of reading beyond the early years, so their ability to share a valuing of the practice with their children and students can be limited. In many contexts, the school curriculum is so heavily laden with competing demands and priorities, finding time at school for what may be seen as an optional extra may be challenge, even for teachers with the best intentions. We also know that young people appear to be reading books less frequently in general. International research suggests that young people’s engagement in read- ing for plea sure is in decline (Common Sense Media, 2014 Organisation for Eco- nomic Co- operation and Development [OECD], 2011a Scholastic, 2015). We need to communicate the value of reading so that it is seen as a pastime worth the invest- ment of young people’s valuable and often scant time. Despite the dire statistics showing reading declines, young people can be keen readers. We should not be disheartened rather, we should continue to actively encourage our young people to both establish and maintain a lifelong love of reading. Promoting positive atti- tudes toward reading is an essential starting point, as I further explain in this chapter. ATTITUDES AND ACHIEVEMENT Keen readers read more often. Unsurprisingly, young people’s attitudes toward reading influence their willingness to engage in the practice, as well as their ulti- mate literacy attainment. Regular readers experience the literacy benefits of read- ing that lower the skill barriers to further reading and to reading more complex texts. This is why reading “will” is so important motivation to read is an essential starting point, a neglected but essential factor in successful reading (De Naeghel et al., 2014). To become effective readers, young people must have both the skill and the will to read (Gambrell, 1996), and the mutually reinforcing relationship between these two aspects needs to be recognized. The focus in literacy education in the United States, Australia, and worldwide is heavily concentrated on skill acquisition and particularly targeted toward the skills that children typically develop in the early years of schooling. However, the role of pleasure and reading will should also be an essential consideration, primar- ily due to the relationship between reading skill and reading will. Understanding how to effectively foster positive attitudes in young people toward reading is essen- tial to form and build reading skills. As enjoyment of reading is positively associ- ated with literacy achievement (Lupo, Jang, & McKenna, 2017 OECD, 2011a), encouraging children to be lifelong readers is an educational imperative. However, fostering a love of reading is not always the curricular priority that it should be. For example, I recently conducted a content analy sis of Australian whole- school literacy policies and plans with my colleague Veronica Gardiner. We found that both lower and upper schools did not typically promote reading engagement as part of a whole- school approach to literacy (Merga & Gardiner, under review). Until our curriculum documents are strongly supportive of the fostering of read- ing engagement, it is not a great surprise that schools do not prioritize it. There are many ways to address this issue of fostering reading engagement in tweens and teens, and this book does not argue for the use of one “right” way. It
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