How Motivation Fit Into My Content Area Goals

In chapter five, by Cris Tovani, “Why Am I Reading This” explains how educators need to establish a clear reading instructional plan. In order to accomplish understanding students need to concentrate on main ideas from the readings. Tovani explains that it is vital for teachers to model how students should hold their thinking or slow down their reading. Throughout the chapters she gives examples as question strategies, highlighting text, or summarizing key points. As this will benefit students in their reading assignment. Tovani also explains throughout the chapter that teachers should model thinking aloud. This strategy will benefit students on how to negotiate difficult text.

When students learn about subjects they are familiar with, it allows the content area being taught to become meaningful. As mentioned in Chapter 6, on page 149, motivation to read can come because they are interested in the content. When students are interested in the content they are reading, their needs are being met, and they will be well prepared for a successful literacy experience.

Motivation will be key for my literacy program. I know that if the students are highly motivated then they will learn more readily. I will build motivation in my classroom by having a positive, warm learning environment. I will have a variety of literature of different genres and of different levels within my classroom. I will also have a variety of areas and centers for the students to participate in.

Many students who struggle with reading ask why should we read, what is the point? The point is that being able to read opens you up a whole new world of knowledge and imagination. But to have that new world opened up you need to be able to comprehend what you are reading. The primary goal of reading is to determine the meaning of

To assist students to “read with purpose and anticipation,” Vacca et al. (2014, p. 173) suggests, in their book Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum, that teachers need to “create an instructional context” that activates their students’ “prior knowledge” and helps them to become interested in a lesson. Throughout chapter six, “Activating Prior Knowledge and Interest,” Vacca et al. (2014, pp. 172-173) explain instructional strategies that can lead students to “read with purpose and anticipation.” This chapter presents the reader with a plethora of instructional strategies and means for applying them, along with example for real educators. As I journeyed through this chapter, I discovered many instructional strategies,

Recently, according to Lucero & Montanero (2012) in their article Rhetorical structure and graphic organizers: effects on learning from a history text research on reading comprehension has evolved from not only strategy teaching to the analysis of activities to promote constructive learning (Lucero & Montanero, 2012). In order to comprehend an academic text, readers are required to consistently evaluate, elaborate and review text information. These types of inferential activities will promote an active role in the student 's task and in turn improve the quality of the process. This aligns perfectly with the basic definition of inquiry learning. Again, this supports how teaching nonfiction reading strategies early on to elementary students will help them be successful within an inquiry based learning system. Lucero & Montanero (2012) suggest that some of these engagement activities teachers could use are summarizing, asking and answering text-based questions , thinking aloud during reading and designing graphic organizers to aid student comprehension (Lucero & Montanero, 2012).

Reading can promote more meaningful learning. According to results from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE, 2004),

Reading is the beginning of every child’s learning. The basis of education begins with learning to read. Short (2010) explained that literature acts as “an inquiry to life” and a “way of knowing” (p. 50). However, in order to support children’s learning, it is essential to show children that learning is interesting from a young age. When Short first began teaching using worksheets and a basal reading program, she wrote, “I often felt that children were learning to read in spite of me” (p. 49). The students were not learning to think critically. However, when she began introducing literature circles to her students, she saw them “critically exploring their understandings with each other” (p. 49).

In the past, knowing that motivation was one of the primary concerns for teachers when teaching them to read (Veenamn, 1984) but today it deals more with finding a way to interest students in reading (O’Flahavan, Gambrell, Guthrie, Stahl, & Alvermann, 1992), Gambrell, Palmer, Codling, & Mazzoni developed a tool to assess student motivation in reading. The Motivation to Read Profile includes a reading survey and a conversational interview. The survey gathers information on reading motivation as it relates to self-concept as a reader and the value of reading. The interview gathers information on books students find most interesting, favorite authors, and where and how students find books. After administering the survey and interview, teachers

For this assignment, I chose the article Motivating Students to Read in the Content Classroom: Six Evidence-Based Principles by William Brozo and Sutton Flynt. This article first talks about how a survey of motivation to read showed a large majority of fourth graders say reading was not their favorite activity and they did not like to read frequently. The authors proposed six ways to get children more involved in reading, starting with elevating their self-efficiency. Students who possess high, school-related self-efficiency outperform their less-engaged peers. Teachers can create conditions for students that are associated with increased perceptions of competence and the student will consequently sustain an effort to be successful. The next point made in this article is to engage interest in new learning. Basically this means to generate interest in new content, making students more likely to put forth necessary efforts to read and learn the new material. “This realization should lead teachers to incorporate a variety of instructional practices that embrace multiple forms of literacy, multiple sources of information, and student choice

Graves, M. F., Juel, C., & Graves, B. B. (2011). Teaching Reading in the 21st Century. Motivating All Learners (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

This involvement with e-books may lead reluctant readers to spend more time reading and interacting with texts (DeJong & Bus, 2007). According to Moalloy, Marinak, and Gambrell (2010), reading tasks that motivate students have some important features such as the freedom to choose among alternatives and control over the reading tasks. This perceived control has had an impact both inside and outside of the class (Malloy, 2010). Also, Flowerday and Schraw found that learners who reported greater perceived control and choice of reading materials were more involved in their classes, and were more motivated to read at home (Flowerday,

A growing body of researchers claim that if students are not motivated and engaged in reading, they will not achieve their full literacy potential (Gambrell, 2011; Serravallo 2015; Warner, 2014; Irvin et al., 2007; Parsons et al., 2015). How and why would they read a “broad range of high-quality, increasingly challenging” texts if they are not interested? Research now shows that engagement and reading achievement actually have a symbiotic relationship, such that they must exist simultaneously (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, as cited in Springer, Harris, & Dole, 2017). As students become more engaged in reading, they develop an increased level of competence, which supports their literacy achievement (Irvin et al., 2007; Springer, Harris, & Dole, 2017). As students’ reading abilities increase, they hold a greater desire to continue reading, along

The motivation to read comes from a variety of factors. This article from a popular website for educators and parents, Reading Rockets, identified five main ones. First, students that have a positive self-concept and value reading will be more successful than those that do not (Gambrell, Palmer, Coddling, & Mazzoni, 1996). Second, a widely used and effective tool for motivation is providing students with choices and when this occurs, students are more likely to engage in reading (Worthy & McKool, 1996). Third, teachers can model reading strategies during read-alouds and discussions which will then help motivate students to read (McGee & Richgels, 2003). Fourth, teachers must have a wide-selection of books for students to read during independent

Cluster one, reading engagement, focuses largely on promoting reading and creating lifelong readers who read for enjoyment as well as out of need. It also includes using strategies to be able to comprehend both recreational reading as well as informational texts. This cluster does a good job of filling some of holes that appear in the AASL standards. The information and research strand hones in on defining an information problem and identifying the information need. Some of the indicators in this standard show that a learner can narrow or broaden an information search as well as seek clarification from teachers and other resources. The third cluster, research and information includes being able to identify, evaluate, and select sources. The indicators in this