L517: Advanced Study of the Teaching of Secondary School Reading

MOTIVATION

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Motivating students to read the text is something teachers need to begin to do before reading.

Very often when we talk about motivation to read we talk about whether the text topic is interesting for the reader. Clearly, a more interesting text is going to be more motivating to read. However, there are a number of factors that influence students' motivation to read--and it's a good thing, because we can not interest every student in every topic of every text.

Motivators can be broken down into two categories: intrinsic motivators and extrinsic motivators.

Intrinsic Motivators

Extrinsic Motivators

As a student becomes a more active readers, extrinsic motivators will be less important to the reader.

Curiosity. Instilling curiosity in students is often as simple as eliciting prior knowledge and providing a concrete purpose for reading. For example, suppose students were going to read a text about the Galapagos Penguins on the Galapagos Islands off of Ecuador. These penguins are endangered. They article that students are going to read discuss reasons that the penguins are endangered. You might begin by engaging students in a conversation about different endangered animals that the students are aware of and why they are endangered. Tell students that they are going to read this article to identify the reasons that the Galapagos Penguins are endangered. Tell students that they should also be thinking about what might be done to save these animals.

If students were simply given an article about Galapagos Penguins and told to read it, curiosity would be low. However, getting students to think about what they know about a topic, and asking them to look for specific information in the text arouses curiosity.

Self-Efficacy. Eliciting prior knowledge and providing a purpose for reading does something else, too. They empower readers. Readers feel more prepared to tackle the reading and more confident about their abilities to be successful with the text. Self-efficacy is a great motivator.

Aesthetic Involvement. To encourage a love a reading, one of the best things a teacher can do is share his or her own love of reading with students. Talk about books that you are reading at home. Bring in interesting newspaper or magazine articles. Find out what books your students are reading for pleasure. It is important to send the message to your students that you value and enjoy reading. One thing you do not want to do is use reading as a punishment. Do not assign more reading when students don't do what you've asked. Doing so sends the message to them that you think reading is an arduous activity.

Challenge. Encourage students to find answers to their own questions by reading texts. For example, suppose your students begin talking about a current event and there is some disagreement about the facts. Challenge students to find out the facts by looking in newspapers and reading on-line news sites. Have them bring in what they found the following day.

Using Trade Books in Your Classroom

Trade books, which include nonfiction, fiction, and picture books, are books that were written for a general audience and can be purchased at your local bookstore. Incorporating trade books into your classroom can go a long way in motivating students. Trade books tend to be a lot more entertaining that textbooks, and are almost always written in more engaging formats. But interest isn't the only reason to include trade books in your content area. In addition to interest, McGowan & Guzzetti (1991) site the following reasons:

McGowen, T., & Guzzetti, B. (1991, January-February). Promoting social studies understanding through literature-based instruction.  Social Studies, pp. 16-21.

If you have any questions about how to post to Oncourse or what your responsibilities are for posting to Oncourse, please visit the L517 Posting to Oncourse web page.

Read this text: Transitive and Intransitive Verbs. Be ready to discuss the text on Oncourse.

On Oncourse:

1. "Discuss the text."
2. On a scale from 1 to 10, how motivated were you to read this text? (1=not at all motivated; 10=really motivated)
3. Discuss why you were or were not motivated to read the text. Did the purpose for reading ("Be ready to discuss the text on Oncourse.") make you more or less motivated to read the text?

4. Asking students to read a text and then be prepared to "discuss it" the next day is not an uncommon practice in the classroom. Talk about the experience of "discussing" the text. What did that mean to you? What problems do see with teachers assigning reading assignments with no other direction than, "Be prepared to discuss this tomorrow"?

Task 1: Compare your partner's reaction to reading the text on Transitive and Intransitive verbs for the purpose of "discussing it on Oncourse" with your own. Comment on the similarities and differences in your reactions.

Task 2: The text you read on Transitive and Intransitive Verbs comes from a web page called HyperGrammar. Go to that web page and choose another grammar text (under where it says "Details") to have your partner read. (You can also have your partner read a subcategory of one of those texts, which you can get to by following the links. It doesn't matter what you have your partner read, just as long as it's some grammatical point that is part of the HyperGrammar web pages.)

Design some sort of pre-reading activity that will motivate your partner to read that text. It could be an activity that would make your partner more curious about the contents of the text. It might be an activity that will help your partner feel that he/she will be successful with the text. Or, maybe your activity will make reading the text more challenging and exciting. (You might even be able to design an activity that does all three!)

Post your activity for your partner on Oncourse, as well as the web address for the HyperGrammar page you want him/her to read.

 Complete your partner's pre-reading activity and post your responses on to that activity on Oncourse. Also complete the reading assignment that the activity was designed for.

Answer these questions on Oncourse:

1. Which text were you more motivated to read, the one on Transitive and Intransitive Verbs or the one your partner had you read? Why?

2. Was your partner's pre-reading activity successful at providing some motivation for reading the text? Why or why not?