Dimensions of Children’s Motivation for Reading and Their Relations to Reading Activity and Reading Achievement

Much of the research on children’s reading has focused on cognitive aspects such as word recognition and comprehension. Major syntheses published in the 1980s and 1990s devoted considerable attention to cognitive processes in reading (Barr, Kamil, Mosenthal, & Pearson, 1991; Pearson, Barr, Kamil, & Mosenthal, 1984; Ruddell, Ruddell, & Singer, 1994). Yet because reading is an effortful activity that children often can choose to do or not to do, it also requires motivation. In reading literature, much of the work relevant to readers’ motivation has been framed in terms of attitudes toward reading. Reading attitudes typically are defined as readers’ affect toward reading (Alexander & Filler, 1976; Mathewson, 1994; McKenna, Kear, & Ellsworth, 1995). The motivational consequences of reading attitudes are that children with more positive attitudes are more motivated to read. A substantial body of work also exists on reading interest, defined as either a characteristic of the person or of the text (Renninger, Hidi, & Krapp, 1992; Schiefele, 1996). Interest relates to text comprehension and other important reading outcomes. Our approach to reading motivation differs from that of researchers studying reading attitudes or reading interest. The approach is grounded in two theoretical positions, the engagement perspective and achievement motivation theory. The engagement perspective on reading integrates cognitive, motivational, and social aspects of reading (Baker, Afflerbach, & Reinking, 1996; Guthrie & Alvermann, 1999; Guthrie, McGough, Bennett, & Rice, 1996; Oldfather & Wigfield, 1996). As Baker et al. (1996) put it, “the engagement perspective views