The "Weekly Reader" National Reading and TV Survey polls the nation's children twice a year in the pages of various "Weekly Reader" periodicals that are distributed to students in grades 2 through 12. The survey: provides children with a means of expressing their opinions on significant subjects of concern to themselves and to adults; communicates the attitudes of children to the adult community through publication of the results (both in the public press and in scholarly journals); and provides a record, over time, of the changing attitudes of children toward subjects of importance. At all grade levels, the survey is filled out by students in class under a teacher's supervision. Teachers summarize the class results. Nearly 14,000 teachers, representing more than 340,000 students, responded to the 1987 survey. A sample of 4,700 teacher summary forms was randomly selected for processing, each representing roughly 25 students, for a total sample of 117,500 students. The survey included questions on: (1) attitudes toward reading books, magazines, and newspapers; (2) attitudes toward watching television and listening to the radio; (3) favorite kinds of books, magazines, television shows, and radio programs; (4) students' perception of the source from which both children and adults get most of their news; (5) feelings about the importance of both adults and children keeping up with the news and about the level of difficulty of news stories; and (6) the extent to which children believe what they read and hear. The results are reported using bar graphs and pie charts. (GL)