Students ' Lack Of Comprehension And Motivation

Benjamin Franklin once said “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” So, the question I pose today is how do we involve children so that they learn? How do we spark that want inside of a student to because a lifelong learner. The best way to build students’ knowledge and thirst for greater understanding is by creating connections. Having connections between prior knowledge, different subject areas, the “outside” world, and what is being learned now and in the future will help students to achieve higher levels of thinking, as well as, the twenty-first century knowledge and skills that are needed in the collegiate and professional words today. One way to make these connections is by using integrated thematic units. Inga Randle (1997) discussed the fourth grade students of Barbara Pedersen who were so eager to learn they would willingly skip recess to be in the classroom learning. Pedersen used integrated thematic instruction to inspire her students. So, by learning what an integrated thematic unit is, why integrated thematic units should be used, and how to use integrated thematic units teachers can become more like Barbara Pedersen and prepare students more for independent thinking and higher education.

Reading is boring, I hate reading. These are two common sentences that you hear before and after ELA class. This is because they are reading a book that is boring to them and they are not interested in that book. They are being forced to read rather than reading something that they will enjoy. This is why choice reading matters. Choice reading allows the student to be able to read what they want. This way reading becomes more of a hobby and less of a boring task to the student. Choice reading not only brings pleasure but it allows you to travel to faraway places, to imagine different world, to learn about different cultures and to learn about some of the top minds of history.

(Counselors Affecting Reading Everyday). My plan would involve developing one-on-one counseling sessions where the students would start off by taking a learning style inventory as well as a reading interest inventory. The purpose of the learning style inventory would be to help the students as well as their teachers to understand how each individual child learns and processes information. The reading interest inventory would serve the purpose of helping the students to find a particular type of text that they may enjoy reading. Upon completion of the learning style inventory and reading interest inventory, the students would begin meeting with the counselor to receive one-on-one reading opportunities using books that students self-select based on their interest. This one-on-one meeting will serve to meet the needs of those students who stated that they did not have anyone at home to read with. The students will utilize the school’s Accelerated Reading program to take quizzes on the books they read with the counselor. After earning their first five Accelerated Reading points, a book will be purchased for the student based on their interest. This incentive plan will serve as a means to provide personal books for those students that do not own any as well as attempting to help them to get over the fear or taking reading tests. During these weekly meetings, the counselor will provide a variety of reading text (based on student

Classroom learning should be taught based on reflecting on the culture and not a curriculum that doesn’t connect with students in particular those in urban settings. Looking into the mindset of both Delpit and Jenson student struggle with reading do to the lack of connection between social and cultural impact within the school curriculum. Without that connection students lose interest and it becomes a domino effect from generation to generation. As a result educators can close the achievement the gap.

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

This is because many schools believe that in today’s age of technology, teenagers prefer reading through a digital platform. However, Merga discovers that reading habits amongst adolescents are not homogenous, and they do not all prefer digital books. Rather, she finds that the individual reading preferences of adolescents vary and educators must take these varying preferences into account.

Reading and writing is crucial for increasing achievement among people of all ethnicities. For many young kids, books are their primary source of learning how to read and write besides the parameter of the classroom. However, there is a significant decrease in the literacy rate found in African-American communities. There is a need for stronger literacy education for this particular group of the population. A huge problem associated with that can be attributed the failure of the public school system to effectively educate the youth. According to the 2009 NAEP data, only 33 percent of 4th graders and 32 percent of 8th graders in the U.S performed at or above proficiency in reading on national tests. These results are very discouraging, in the African-American community, but the results are even worse because only 16 percent of African American 4th graders and 14 percent of African American 8th graders performed at or above the grade proficiency level in 2009.

Michael Henry’s article “Whats with This Summer Reading” has readers pondering why summer reading has students “moving one step further from reading.” Michael Henry explains that one day he saw a teenager becoming very frustrated with the book he was reading. He asked why the young man was reading the book and the boy said, because it was a summer reading assignment. This made Henry think and he began to research summer reading assignments. He wanted to find out what was causing so much frustration.

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

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,

Elementary school teachers are constantly looking for a way to do things better. How can I engage my students in my instruction? How can I make their learning purposeful to their lives? How can I be more efficient in my planning and effective in my teaching? The Daily 5, a reading instruction program created by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, claims to be the answers to these questions. Boushey and Moser (2012) created the program after teaching and observing others’ literacy blocks. The program is said to “engage students, [and] also teach and promote self-independence on tasks” so that the classroom teacher can attend to individual students’ needs (LaShomb, 2011, p. 1). Boushey and Moser (2006) claim that not only does the program allow students to become self-sufficient learners, but it also engages them in meaningful literature daily.

The shared book reading program is a teacher-directed literacy program designed to allow the educator the opportunity to model developing comprehension, alphabetics, and general reading achievement skills. The program aligns with the CCSS in that is focuses on the development of comprehension, alphabetics, and general reading skills. Furthermore, the program’s flexible design allows the teacher to utlize formative assessment to create targeted lessons focused on group and individual achievement (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012).. Additionally, teachers are encouraged to use open-ended questions as well as student’s background knowledge to engage leaners during the lesson. The program encourages the use of quality trade literature

In “Summer Learning and its Implications” suggested that providing a summer outlet for low SES students with similar school materials and structure would aid in reducing SLL. Other suggestions include extending the school year, providing more cost friendly activities, and making the prospect of summer school more appealing to low-income students (Alexander, et al., 2007). Patton and Reschly propose that in the future research there should be an emphasis placed on the “recoupment, longitudinal studies of loss, and prevention”. They identify that when looking at these different areas it’s crucial that the multiple facets that impact them are also looked at, such as grade levels, subgrouping, when most academic growth occurs, and the type of instruction that will work best. Since the Kolose study didn’t directly measure the achievement loss of students, their future research is different than those suggested in the previous studies. Kolose identifies three major areas that need to be improved in order to decrease the SLE. First, there needs to be greater access to resources for low SES students. Second, efforts need to be made by both teachers and parents to increase the motivation and engagement that high SLE have for reading. Finally, high SLE students need to be provided with additional support and guidance when choosing appropriate books and building their independent reading skills. While each study proposes different means to decrease SLL, they all are identifying ways to make this goal

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

Families are often encouraged to provide a variety of reading material for their children, especially at an early age, to give children plenty of options when learning how to read. When children are provided with a variety of reading material at home, they see that a high value is placed on reading. If parents value reading at home, children tend to value it also, and the more a child is encouraged to read at home, the more they will want to engage in reading in general. By being involved in their child’s reading development, parents can give their children a firm foundation to reading prior to entering grade school which will lead to a lifetime of reading enjoyment and