The pleasure of reading and its components. An empirical survey in the primary and secondary schools.

This study investigate the pleasure of reading and its components in children aged 8 to 13 by an empirical research conducted in the primary and in the secondary school. The pleasure is often associated to affective response to reading, but recent studies underline the strong relationship between cognitive and emotive elements. Our attention is focused on the aesthetic area of young reader’s involvement. It was tested the validity of Tellegen’s questionnaire (2001) in Italy. It was administered to 799 pupils. The questionnaire has 50 items and the data have been analyzed by Factor analysis, Path analysis and Analysis of variance. Some principal components of pleasure emerged: the first refers to reading for mood control. It emerged also from Tellegen’s results as the second factor and it was described as a motivational element that promotes rest and distraction. The second factor highlights the power of imagination, while the third factor is an emotional component, which explains a significant part of the pleasure of reading. The latent variables were used to construct a path model, which offers an immediate picture of the multidimensional phenomenon of pleasure, showing the strongest correlations. The analysis of variance found differences of gender, age and sociocultural context. Females are more imaginative than males. There is a substantial difference between the responses of primary school pupils and those of secondary school. In fact, it was found that the pleasure of reading declines with the advancing of the age.