That would include books such as "Because of Winn-Dixie," selected this week by third-grader Kayla Marineau at Keeney Street School in Manchester, where teachers are in their second year testing [Sally M. Reis]' approach.

When the approach was pilot-tested four years ago at Batchelder and Kinsella schools in Hartford, it led to higher scores in reading comprehension and oral reading fluency and "significantly higher attitudes toward reading," according to the journal article by Reis and former UConn graduate student Elizabeth A. Fogarty, now a professor at East Carolina University.

KEENEY SCHOOL THIRD-GRADE STUDENTS Emily Szemreylo, 8, and her classmate Kiarsha Mannix, 8, read books during an independent reading time on Tuesday afternoon. In an alternative approach to reading, the students in [Michele Frallicciardi]'s class in Manchester choose and read books that interest them. GRAPHIC: Reading List What do kids like to read? Here are the books picked by some of the third-graders at Keeney Street School in Manchester in a reading enrichment program developed at the University of Connecticut. (LIBRARY NOTE: This graphic was not available electronically for this database.)