Motivation - How does it help readers? Ascertaining what the students want to learn and what their thoughts are is a contributing factor to student motivation. When the students know the teacher is working with them to achieve, rather than making work for them, the students work harder knowing their thoughts are valued. During my classes I have learned to analyze feedback from students. I used Survey Monkey to gain knowledge about the student's thoughts on reading. The survey asked students how they perceived themselves as a reader and their views on reading. The survey also questioned how the student wanted help achieving in the classroom. The insight gained into my student's views on reading helped me formulate lessons geared to cultivate their thinking about reading. After collecting and analyzing the results of the survey I found I needed to increase my student's self-confidence concerning reading.
Another motivational factor is to make the rewards of student reading logical, this was shown to increase their amount of reading. Typically, book logs are simply graded by many elementary school teachers. This payout for students is not logical. They get rewarded with a grade, or conversely, they get punished for not completing the reading. Changing the rewards for reading to a prize such as a book, is much more logical and will encourage students to complete their reading. An additional strategy to increase upper-elementary student reading is to show students that adults read. This can be done by the teacher also keeping a reading log and discussing with the class what they are personally reading. Teachers also need to encourage parents to demonstrate reading skills at home, students should see their parents reading. They can be reading the newspaper, reading for work, reading bedtime stories or reading for their own pleasure. Parents being a literacy role model for their children is very powerful. Students are also motivated to read when there is the incentive of technology or a culminating project based on the topic being studied. To the right are pictures from our 4th grade Wax Museum. The project encompassed several English Language Arts standards including reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Overall students who know the end product will culminate in a project, especially one using an iPad, computer or other internet based program, will work harder and will increase their amount of time reading. Increased time in text directly results to an increase in reading achievement. |
Wax Museum Presentations
|