Bong Gee Jang

Am I a Qualified Literacy Researcher and Educator? A Counter-Story of a Professional Journey of One Asian Male Literacy Scholar in the United States.

Although there has been a significant increase in the number of minority faculty members in higher education, little is known about potential barriers and challenges we face during their early career development. In this counter-story article, I share my own professional experiences regarding the choices I made and obstacles I faced in developing my own career including both teaching and research. Compared with mainstream early career scholars, I realized that there are certain areas or methods that I was expected to teach or research. I hope that my counter-story presented in this article can contribute to understanding the conflicts and labels that international faculty may face and reframing them as potential assets that we can develop and bring into meaningful literacy practice.

Validation of the Informal Decoding Inventory

This study investigated the reliability and validity of Part 1 of the Informal Decoding Inventory (IDI), a free diagnostic assessment used to plan Tier 2 intervention for first graders with decoding deficits. Part 1 addresses single-syllable words and consists of five subtests that progress in difficulty and that contain real word and pseudoword components. The IDI was administered to a sample of 94 first graders who attended three high-poverty schools in a rural district located in a South Atlantic state. The Test of Word Recognition Efficiency–Second Edition (TOWRE-2) was given in the same session. Internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) exceeded .70 for the total scores and all but one subtest. Total scores for real words and pseudowords correlated highly with TOWRE-2 subtests. Confirmatory factor analysis substantiated the five-factor structure of the IDI, and mean comparisons affirmed the order of the subtests in all cases but one. Overall, this preliminary study affirmed the reliability and validity of the IDI. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

The Relationship Between Reading Achievement and Attitudes Toward Print and Digital Texts in Adolescent Readers

This study examined the relationship between adolescents’ reading attitudes and comprehension to better understand the interplay between affective and cognitive factors for students with varying reading abilities. A comprehension proficiency assessment and the Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes were administered to 202 ninth graders. Findings indicated moderate correlations between reading achievement and recreational print reading attitudes. Small correlations were found between both academic print and digital text attitudes and reading achievement. No correlations were found between recreational digital text attitudes and achievement, although students demonstrated the most positive attitudes toward recreational digital texts. Students who read on or above grade level demonstrated better attitudes toward recreational print, academic print, and academic digital texts than students who read below grade level. Implications for instruction and future research are discussed, including the need for further exploration of the association between reading achievement and incorporating pleasure reading into the English curriculum. Additionally, given the positive attitudes displayed by both on/above grade-level readers and below grade-level readers toward recreational digital texts, implications of the social nature of reading instruction are discussed.

ESL Teachers’ Perceptions About English Learners’ Reading Motivation

The role of motivation in engaging students in reading activities and thus improving their reading achievement has been widely reported for the past decades. However, despite the increasing numbers of English learners (ELs) in the United States, little is known about how teachers perceive their motivation to read. Focus group methodology was used in this study to explore English as a second language teachers’ perceptions of ELs’ reading motivation. Three major themes that emerged from our qualitative analysis were (a) accessible texts, (b) self-concept, and (c) fitting in. The implications for both future research and classroom instruction are provided.