Pathways to Motivate Reluctant Readers: Exploring Teachers’ Perception of Using Children’s Picture Books to Increase English Language Learners’ Reading Motivation

Reluctant reading, aliteracy, and readicide are issues that were recently developed as a result of the remarkable decline of learners’ reading motivation. One of the major causes of these vexing issues was the paucity of materials that could be implemented to increase learners’ reading motivation. To fill this gap, the current study explored teachers’ experiences of using children’s picture books to increase students’ reading motivation. Two English as a second language teachers from the fifth and sixth grades participated in this study. Classrooms were observed and both teachers were interviewed at the end of the fieldwork of this study. Findings from classroom observation notes indicated that teachers spent 462 minutes in delivering reading instructions, tasks, and activities. In the same vein, students spent 329 minutes in reading practices throughout the assigned reading sessions. Finally, both teachers affirmed an increasing interest of reading practices in the participating classrooms comparing to previous reading-periods.