Does Johnny's Reading Teacher Love to Read? How Teachers' Personal Reading Habits Affect Instructional Practices

This article investigates the relationship between teachers' personal reading habits and their instructional practices. Teachers responded to a questionnaire that revealed their attitudes toward reading, the amount of time they spent reading per day and the kind of literacy practices that they used in their classrooms. Results indicate: (1) while most teachers value reading as a leisure time activity, only about half read for pleasure on a daily basis, (2) teachers who read more than 30 minutes per day use a greater number of best practice strategies, (3) teachers who value reading the most tend to share insights from their own personal reading, and (4) teachers who read for pleasure use both intrinsic and extrinsic types of motivation.