This book presents cutting-edge research findings in areas critical to advancing reading research in the 21st century context, including new literacies, reading motivation, strategy instruction, and reading intervention studies.While students' reading performance is currently receiving unprecedented attention, there is a lack of research that adopts an international perspective and draws on research expertise from different parts of the world to present a concerted effort, discussing key research models and findings on how to improve reading education. Addressing this gap in the literature, the book also responds to the challenge of promoting higher levels of literacy, and supporting and developing readers who can enjoy and critique texts of every genre.

Part I Context.- Chapter 1 Improving reading and reading engagement: An international focus.- Chapter 2 Engaging readers in the 21st Century: What we know and need to know more.- Part II New Literacies and Critical Reading.- Chapter 3 Advancing reading engagement and achievement through personal digital inquiry, critical reading, and argumentation.- Chapter 4 Key issues in research on students' critical reading and learning in the 21st Century information society.- Chapter 5 Image-language interaction in text comprehension: Reading reality and national reading tests.- Chapter 6 Reading the future: The contribution of literacy studies to debates on reading and reading engagement for primary-aged children.- Part III Reading Motivation and Strategy Instruction.- Chapter 7 Engaging students in the "Joy of Reading" program in Finland.- Chapter 8 Reading motivation and strategy use of Hong Kong students: The role of reading instruction in Chinese language classes.- Chapter 9 "Reading was like my nightmare but now it's my thing": A narrative of growth and change of an Australian Indigneous student.- Chapter 10 Engaging children in reading activity through collaboration in a Japanese elementary school: An activity-theoretical case study.- Chapter 11 The potential for better outcomes of looking at what our language tell us about what we do when we read for memory and meaning outcomes.- Part IV Partnership and Intervention.- Chapter 12 Generating data, generating knowledge: Professional identity and the Strathclyde Literacy Clinic.- Chapter 13 Transforming literacy outcomes in high poverty school: An evidence-based approach.- Chapter 14 A university-school partnership teacher-teaching-teacher intervention model to promote reading in Hong Kong: Issues and challenges.- Chapter 15 Reading and writing connections: How writing can build better readers (and vice versa).