Abstract
Nigerian educators, especially language teachers often complain that their students underachieve mainly because many of them have poor reading habits. It has been observed that many Nigerian children grow into adulthood without developing much interest in leisure reading. This paper investigates the truth or otherwise of the hypothesis that Nigerian university students do not sufficiently engage in leisure reading activities and this impacts negative, not only on their proficiency in English, but on their overall academic performance. Data was gathered through the administration of questionnaires to four hundred students in four Southwest and North Central Nigerian universities, two from each region. The results of the study reveal that most Southwest and North Central Nigerian university students do not devote sufficient time to leisure reading activity because they do not consider it important enough for their personal development and academic attainment. The findings also show that many Nigerian university students have negative attitudes, at worst, or lukewarm attitude at best, towards newspapers, magazines and other leisure reading materials. The study further observes that the time available for leisure reading activities by Nigerian students has been severely reduced by vocational activities and other leisure activities, especially the social media. The paper concludes that tertiary institutions should make leisure reading materials such as novels, newspapers and magazines more accessible to students. Universities should encourage the founding of reading clubs and stocking of libraries, reading rooms and common rooms with dailies, weekly and monthly periodical that interest young people.
Keywords: fiction and non-fiction materials, leisure reading, Literacy, Nigerian university students, reading club.
DOI: 10.36349/zamijoh.2023.v02i01.002
author/Ayoola, A.K. & basambo, S.N.
journal/Zamfara IJOH Vol. 2, Issue 1
