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The paper is part of a larger qualitative study of female Emirati university students' leisure reading habits and the purpose is to investigate the factors that have affected the reading habits of six respondents as they tell how they became avid readers.

Six students, who are very keen readers, were asked to write their stories of how they became readers, starting with their earliest memories of books and reading. Using open and axial coding through constant comparative analysis, the stories were analysed to allow categories and common themes to emerge.

Although each student's reading journey is a very personal, individual one, there are some common factors which have helped the students become the readers they are today. These include parental encouragement at an early age, particularly that of fathers, intervention by teachers who took an active interest in promoting reading, and the continuing effect of peers as they get older. Students' preference for owning the books, they read suggests the permanence of reading in their lives as they often like to reread books they have enjoyed. Unfortunately, studying at an English‐medium university has resulted in students reading fewer Arabic books than before.

For the first time, the voices of female Emirati freshmen in this paper challenge the myth that Arabs do not read, by showing how positive interventions by parents, educators and peers have helped shape the readers they are today. The paper serves as a reminder to educators to acknowledge the readers our students have become by accommodating and encouraging their extra‐curricular reading in both Arabic and English.

This paper presents a summary of international research in the field of family reading, a subject which refers both to the development of the literacy skills of family members, and to their shared process of reading.

It begins by defining the key terms in family reading, then introduces the research methods employed in research in this area.

Research specifically focusing on parents is presented, with particular reference to young parents and fathers in prison. The issue of intergenerational reading is also introduced, whereby (in this instance) the young and the elderly share experiences via reading. The final theme of the paper is that of families sharing reading for pleasure, and public reading events for families are described. The paper concludes with a series of barriers to family reading, and a suggested model of effective family reading, for families and communities in any country.

In a paper of this scale and length, it is impossible to give more than a limited perspective of international research on family reading, yet the author believes that sufficient examples are given – and the research methods sufficiently globally applicable – for the paper to be of theoretical and practical value to public and school librarians, and academics.

The paper collates and reflects on examples of international research and practice, whilst providing a solid framework of research methods in the area of family reading.

This is an exploratory study of reading behaviors and interest among students residing in a female residential college of Kolej Datin Seri Endon (KDSE), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and the use of reading stations (RS) placed at strategic locations throughout the main campus. The UTM's Vice Chancellor project of developing various RS was to promote a reading culture in UTM. Currently there are 48 RS in the main campus of Skudai and ten more in UTM International campus. Most of the books were donated by UTM staff and students themselves.

Using simple random sampling, 187 students were selected from a population of 1,300 female students. The survey instrument was designed in the form of structured questionnaire comprising a series of close‐ended and open‐ended questions design. A team of researcher investigated and evaluated at least 15 Reading Stations through out the campus.

The findings highlighted some factors related to reading habits and interest of students. The student's evaluation of the RS has been positive. Students however lamented that the books found at the RS are outdated, too academic and unrelated to their specific interest. This showed that even though the RS have been well received by students but it called for many areas of improvement in order for the RS to be of benefit and relevant to the campus community.

It is hoped that this study will stimulate further in‐depth studies and institutional budget allocation for training courses such as speed reading and mind mapping to inculcate a reading culture among students.

This is an original article on the reading habits of students in a certain college in UTM and the evaluation of RS, a newly launched project to promote reading culture among students.

Surveys factors affecting the reading habits of secondary school students in Ogbomoso State in Nigeria and discusses the results. Highlights the following inhibiting factors: the family background of students where few homes are conducive to reading owing to noise and lack of reading materials; the lack of functional libraries in most of the schools surveyed and a similar lack of trained librarians or teacher librarians; the failure to provide library periods in schools; language teachers and shortage of equipment and resources for teaching reading skills; and a heavy reliance on school texts, although students show willingness to read more broadly, e.g. newspapers and novels.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the results of continuing professional development sessions delivered to academics on the importance of a properly annotated reading list to the student experience.

As part of the session, the academics were asked to take part in a “pop quiz” providing their interpretation of commonly used reading list labels.

There was quite a broad interpretation of the labels, with several eliciting strongly positive or negative reactions. The similarity of meanings between some reading list labels made them redundant for helping students to prioritise their reading.

This case study could be used to provide sessions on reading lists at other institutions, and the results from the quiz can be used to simplify reading list labels.

The purpose of this study is to explore gender differences in the online reading environment.

Survey and analysis methods are employed.

Survey results reveal that female readers have a stronger preference for paper as a reading medium than male readers, whereas male readers exhibit a greater degree of satisfaction with online reading than females. Additionally, males and females differ significantly on the dimension of selective reading and sustained attention.

Understanding gender differences would enable a better understanding of the changing reading behavior in the online environment, and to develop more effective digital reading devices. Factors affecting gender differences in the online reading environment are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.

Reading represents a basic way by which humans understand the world and acquire knowledge; it is also central to learning and communicating. However, with the rapid development of mobile reading, an individual's cognition of objective facts may be affected by the reading environment and text genre, resulting in limited memorization and understanding of the reading material. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of the reading environment and text genre on individuals' cognitive activities from the perspective of motivational activation level using evidence from electroencephalography (EEG) signals.

The study employed a mixed design experiment with two reading environments (quiet and distracting) between subjects, two text genres (entertaining and scientific) within subjects and two reading tasks (memory recall and comprehension) within subjects. There were 50 participants in the experiment, and the data obtained from 44 participants while they read the materials and completed the reading tasks were analyzed.

The results showed that readers are more positively motivated to read in a quiet reading environment than in a distracting reading environment when facing the memory recall tasks of entertaining genre passages and comprehension tasks of scientific genre passages. Entertaining genres are more likely to arouse readers' reading interest but hinder the memory recall of the content details. While scientific genres are not easy to understand, they are helpful for working memory.

This study not only applies a new technology to mobile reading research in the field of library science and addresses the limitations of self-report data, but also provides suggestions for the further improvement of mobile reading service providers. Additionally, the results may provide useful information for learners with different learning demands.

The purpose of this paper was to highlight pertinent issues relating to digital access and the development of digital reading culture in Africa. This study established the appropriate strategies of promoting digital reading culture in African libraries and also the roles that libraries use in promoting the adoption of digital reading culture amidst various challenges and obstacles.

This paper examined an extensive empirical and theoretical literature review. A thorough analysis of the literature was done, focusing on combining empirical studies and theoretical ones, to bring out the importance of the reading process and how it can be adapted to digital context to overcome the access issues in the digital environment.

The findings indicated the advantages of digital reading in the present era. Additionally, the results pointed out the challenges faced in developing countries in Africa when promoting a digital reading culture and proposed the important role of librarians in helping the population through digital literacy.

This paper provides significant approaches on promoting digital reading in developing countries. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to review the literature from different aspects and perspectives on this topic in the context of developing countries in Africa.

Providing equal opportunities in class as well as at home does not ensure equal promotion of leisure reading among girls and boys. Gender differences have wider impacts on their reading development. The purpose of this paper is to find out gender differences in leisure reading habits among children.

The search process was conducted during Aug.–Sept. 2019 using Scopus database. A total of 41 studies were selected for the review. The systematic review used Cochrane Methodologies reported as per preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines for identification, evaluation and selection of studies. The studies that dealt with leisure reading, reported gender difference of reading, had age group of 4–18-year children, were in English language and were accessible to the researchers were selected for review.

The results were presented in terms of identified reading factors including reading frequency, reading choice, reading time, reading media, reading influence, reading value and library use. The girls were more frequent readers than boys. The girls were in favor of fiction, while boys were interested in reading nonfiction. Girls preferred online materials but boys were in favor of printed materials. The boys were influenced by their fathers and peer groups’ reading, while girls were influenced by their mothers’ reading habits.

The study provided better understanding of boys’ and girls’ reading differences and required the librarians, teachers and academic policymakers to deal with them accordingly.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first kind of systematic review reporting difference of reading on the basis of gender and inferred reading factors. It will be helpful for librarians, teachers and academic policymakers to consider these differences while dealing with boys’ and girls’ reading choices and interests.

A progress report on the present state of the art in rapid reading Of all the personal skills that a manager needs to bring to his work, the one which is most widely neglected and yet which is capable of the most ready and the most dramatic improvement is the skill of rapid and efficient reading. Assuming that a manager can already read with a reasonable degree of fluency—say, that he can read an article such as this at a speed of 250 words per minute or thereabouts with good comprehension—evidence accumulated over the last ninety‐five years would indicate that a short course of training should enable him to increase his speed of reading, without loss of comprehension, by an average of 80 per cent. This percentage improvement will apply whatever the material or the purpose for which it is read, provided like is compared with like (see figure 1). Individual improvements on a course can range from 25 per cent to 250 per cent and more.