Reading Motivation among Eighth Grade Black Male Students

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that motivate eighth-grade Black male students enrolled in an urban charter school to read. The eighth-grade level was selected because the school’s internal reading comprehension assessment indicated that 77 percent of the eighth-grade Black male students read below grade level. There is a lack of data in the literature that considers the perspectives of Black male students in regard to their reading performance and reading motivation. This study is significant to the field of education because it will share the perspectives of Black male students. It is essential to motivate our adolescent Black male students to read, because literacy is central to developing and strengthening their voices in their communities and around the world. By using a qualitative design, this dissertation studied the factors that contribute to reading motivation and the type of texts that were engaging and relevant to the participants. According to the results, students are motivated to read texts when they have the opportunity to self-select their own reading materials that relate to topics that interest them.