Promoting children’s reading motivation with culturally relevant reading education

This study explored how a culturally relevant summer reading program may empower young Black students through social action and opportunities for reading engagement, thus supporting their reading motivation. The North Florida Freedom Schools (NFFS) was designed to realize social justice by providing free educational opportunities, especially for underserved children. Within this context, we explored the students’ autonomous reading motivation and relevant variables to explain how the summer programming may support their motivation to read. In this mixed-methods study, we found that students’ autonomous motivation to read was positively related to their self-efficacy, autonomy, relatedness, and controlled motivation to read. Building positive social relationships and supporting autonomy were important factors in explaining students’ high autonomous motivation in NFFS. Moreover, students reported that participation in NFFS inspired them to effectively engage in reading activities and believe in the value of social action (i.e., how people could contribute to making a better community).