Abstract
The article presents the results of the project funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Grant № AP08957331) “Development and popularization of the Kazakh language and literature in the context of modernization of intercultural education”. The project is aimed at studying and popularizing the cultural and literary heritage of the prominent Kazakh researcher Shokan Ualikhanov. Research aimed at identifying reading interests and improving reading literacy is highly relevant. However, as the analysis of the literature has shown, currently in Kazakhstan there are no large-scale researches related to the study of reading among the population. The objectives of the study included the identifying of readers’ interest in the works of Kazakh writers. We solved several interrelated tasks, including determining the level of the respondents’ reading literacy in relation to Kazakh literature, and identifying the features of their reading culture. 334 people of different age and social groups participated in the survey. The questionnaire contained 23 items. The results of the conducted research showed that the respondents have a high interest in the field of reading in general; however, the interest in the works of Kazakh authors is not high. Despite the low interest in reading Kazakh literature, the respondents demonstrated a fairly good level of knowledge of the works of Kazakh authors. Keywords: reading interest, cultural heritage, literary heritage, reading