Inquiry Project

How do children decide what picture books to read?

Research shows that most boys do not like to read fiction or most traditional literature. Actually, boys tend to read non-fiction books but only the parts that are interesting to them. On the other hand, girls like fiction books and tend to read them in their entirety.

Factors that influence their decisions:

	they judge picture books by their covers
	the book contains a character that is popular with their peers
	the parents have introduced either the author or series to the child
	students try to look for characters that are like them racially or ethnically

Other findings:

boys take longer to choose books than girls

possible reasons:

	boys are fussier than girls when it comes to picking picture books
	girls tend to read more, so they have a better idea of what they are looking for in a book
	during my experiment, I may have chosen books that were more interesting for girls than boys and hence biased the experiment

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