Digital Reading Engagement of Junior High School Students during the Online Learning

The pandemic of COVID-19 has forced the teachers and students to hold the teaching and learning remotely. All the process of learning was conducted online via various mobile applications. Students widely use smartphones as a medium to receive learning materials, join online classes, and study. However, it was questioned whether students are engaged with their reading materials when they have to read the texts on screen or digitally and learn from them. It is expected that the use of digital devices has influenced students' reading engagement, especially when the reading is to learn. This study aims to find out about the students' engagement in reading digital texts during online learning. The study collects the data from self-report questionnaires, interviews, and observation. The result shows that students do not experience behavioral and affective engagement as well as a negative response while they are reading the texts onscreen during online learning.

The Practical Use of Online Comic Manga: Facilitating Students’ English Reading Engagement

The study was done to get the depth information from the practical use of online comic manga in building students’ English reading engagement. It creates the enjoy time to read and students get the meaningful activity in each reading process. The method used the one-group pretest-posttest experimental design. The data collected through observation, documentation and reading test. While data analysis used the t-test paired two samples for means. The resulting shows that t-stat (9.2934) t-table (2.0484), It means that reading online comic manga gave the fun activity at online class or home. The implication of the study was on the reading source learning to create enjoy and comfort learning.

Exploring EFL Students’ Reading Engagement in KWL Strategy

This research attempted to explore how the KWL strategy facilitates EFL students' reading engagement. The participants of this research were three students of an Islamic Senior High School. Using a case study design, the researcher describes EFL students' reading engagement by observing and engaging them in in-depth interviews. For gaining the data, the researchers used semi-structured interviews and the students' artefacts of the KWL tables. The interview session was conducted through WhatsApp audio-recording as a preferred interview media by the participants. The result of the research found that the KWL strategy gives positive engagement and self-assessment to EFL students with several stages. Other researchers are suggested to conduct further research on similar topics related to reading engagement in EFL students. Several research possibilities will expand this research. First, future researchers can complete this study by looking at the students' needs in the classroom. The results of this study revealed that students have difficulty with vocabulary.

Facilitating Reading Engagement in Shared Reading

This article responds to this special issue's overarching interest in the relation between modes of reading and the experiences of actual readers by analyzing how the specific practice of shared reading facilitates readers’ engagement in literary reading. The article responds both to an under-investigated dimension of the practice of shared reading, that of the role of facilitation, and to a pressing articulated and educational need to develop additional and better methodologies for fostering literary reading engagement, as existing results from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have demonstrated the importance of reading engagement for both academic achievement and social mobility. By linking the notion of engagement within the PISA framework with phenomenologically oriented empirical research on expressive reading and the notion of emergent thinking in existing shared reading research, the article argues for the role of the reader leader in facilitating literary engagement. These connections may inspire literary scholars to consider the link between literary analysis and the didactics of literary reading.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Families’ Home Literacy Practices with Young Children

The practice of shared book reading is a nurturing support for early language, literacy and socio-emotional development within young children’s typical care. However, the closures of childcare and centers for family activities in the Spring of 2020 due to COVID-19 brought many sudden changes to care and the everyday lives of families with young children. In order to explore the impact of COVID-19 on shared reading, we surveyed parents of children between ages 2 and 5 (n = 85) about their children’s frequency of shared reading engagement in February and October, 2020 as well as the frequency of screen-mediated reading, the number of readers their children read with, and book preferences at both time points. Parents were also asked about changes in their children’s regular care and whether and how they had tried new kinds of (virtual) literacy activities during their increased time at home. Preliminary findings showed that there were no significant changes in frequency of shared reading from February to October, but there was a significant increase in frequency of screen-mediated reading, especially among families who lost outside-the-home childcare. There was also a significant decrease in the number of adults regularly reading with the children. Caregivers described adapting to virtual options for storytime. Ultimately, while families were still able to provide consistent amounts of shared reading with their children throughout COVID-19, the nature of that shared reading was changed. Future research will investigate whether these changes may have an impact on children’s typical learning from shared reading.

Using PQRST Strategy and Powtoon Media To Improve Students’ Reading Engagement

The main objective of this research was to find out the improvement of students’ engagement in reading comprehension of descriptive text using PQRST Strategy and PowToon media to the seventh grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Sungai Raya in academic year 2019/2020. This classroom research was conducted in three cycles. The subject of this research was 32 students in class VII E. The researcher used observation checklist, field notes and reading tests as tools of data collection. The improvement of students’ engagement improvement could be seen was reflected byfrom their students’ performance in the teaching and learning process. The students became more enthusiastic in following participating in the lesson because they worked in group with their friends. The teacher gave a PQRST learning log to each groups as a guide during the stage of PQRST strategy shown in PowToon media. Preview, the students guess the topic by read the title and the pictures. Question, the students made questions based on they were interested in Preview stage. Read, the students read the whole text while looking for the answers of their own questions, they also wrote the difficult words found. State, the teacher and the students discussed about the contents of the text and the difficult words. The students have also take turn presented the results of their group’s work with their own words. Last in Test the teacher gave the students multiple choice to make sure they understood the text clearly. Those activities make students more active during the class, so their reading engagement was improved.