Children 's interest reading: a procedure to investigate the reinforcer value of activities

Abstract

The objectives of the present study were to investigate: (a) the reinforcer value of reading for a group of second and fourth grade students of an elementary public school; (b) to develop a procedure to investigate the reinforcer value of reading for elementary school students; (c ) to verify if the reinforcer value of reading depended on reading comprehension skills. Each session presented materials related to the following activities: reading, playing, painting, drawing, molding, cutting and pasting; the dependent measure was the time participants allocated to each activity. The results demonstrated that most children engaged in reading activities when other activities were also available. The study suggests that reading can be a reinforcing activity for elementary school students. Concerning the third objective, the available data do not permit a clear conclusion about the relationship between the reinforcer value of reading and reading comprehension.