Chapter 3 Teaching Reading in the 21st Century READ 399 Notes PDF

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Textbook: Teaching Reading in the 21st Century
Chapter: 3
Professor: Linda Wise...

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Chapter 3: Motivation and Engagement Making Motivation a Top Priority -motivation is essential to learning -motivation is complex because there are many branches to this tree. the two main branches are: -children who have intrinsic motivation to read do so "because the activity is satisfying and rewarding in its own right" -to foster intrinsic motivation, teachers must create a literate environment, a physical and emotional space where literacy is valued, encouraged, and practiced -extrinsically motivated readers read to get a positive outcome -each teacher has two major but interconnected goals: 1.creating exciting and stimulating academic tasks that promote learning 2.motivating children to read as a lifelong pursuit -academic motivation is fostered by: -interesting tasks -personal goals -a sense of efficacy -choice -challenge -cooperative activities -personal interest -cultural connections -involvement with stories or informational text -avid readers: children and adults who voluntarily seek out reading as a path to information, enjoyment, and personal fulfillment -a successful reading experience has at least three features: 1.the reader understands what she has read -understanding might take more than one reading -may require your assistance or that of other students -will often require the reader to actively manipulate the ideas in the text 2.reader finds the reading experience enjoyable, entertaining, informative, or thought provoking 3.often a means to a larger goal Creating a Literate Environment -literate environment: describes the sort of classroom, school, and home in which literacy is fostered, nurtured, and necessary -in a literate environment: -people read to themselves and to others -people write to others and to themselves -people write on paper and on screens -people read and write to manage their daily lives -print surrounds us! Modeling

-probably the most important component of a literate environment is modeling done by people children respect and love -adults demonstrate the fact that reading opens up a world of information and imagination from which they gain knowledge, insight, and joy -modeling should occur not just once, but repeatedly (all the time) to be most effective -should include both repeated demonstrations and direct testimonials -reading aloud to students is another way to demonstrate how much you value reading -also becomes an opportunity to teach students about the rewards that reading brings -allows you to introduce the new authors, new genres, and new ideas -offers you to opportunity to talk about writing in a way that is concrete and engaging A Print-Rich Classroom -three kinds of print should fill your classroom: 1.books 2.print created by the teacher 3.print created by the students -James Hoffman and his colleagues (2004) studied literary environments and found that they could link the amount and quality of print in the room to growth in student's reading comprehension -materials should be selected so that students have a wide variety of topics, reading levels, and genres to choose from -other books should be chosen to reflect the diversity of your classroom as well as the diversity of the larger society outside your classroom -digital texts have an important role in the classroom -another effectives strategy for identifying books that your students may enjoy is to talk with your school media specialist or the librarians at the local library -another way to identify books is to watch the kids -just like adults, children have their own bestsellers -the social, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds of your students and of the greater society constitute another important factor in selecting books -reading books from many cultures exposes students to many wonderful authors -teachers can and should create print for their classrooms that informs, guides, and reflects learning -posters, anchor charts, graphic organizers, are more powerful than ones bought at a supply store -you and your students should create all sorts of instructional charts -the act of creating a chart and hanging it on the wall stresses the importance of the strategy or concept being taught -children's writing should be displayed in the classroom -simple acts validate the importance of their writing and encourage others to write Organizing Physical Space -the layout of your room influences students' literate behaviors -you need a table at which to meet with small groups -you need desks, arranged in groups for students to work together

-you need places to hold the computers and print resources that are essential for writing and inquiry -the MOST important area is the classroom library!!! -should be large enough with comfortable seating -should have at least 6 to 8 books for every child in the classroom organized by reading level, genre, and topic -rotate the books regularly so that there are always new books to discover -several teachers let the students organize the classroom library Choice -choice does not mean that you never assign selections for students to read but it does mean that you structure regular opportunities for students to choose their own reading materials and to choose their own response mode -allowing students some choice often helps motivate them to spend time reading -independent reading provides one opportunity for students to choose -suggested that if reading is the goal, students ought to be able to read all kinds of texts, print, and digital -if we want students to spend time reading, we must allow them to choose what they read as often as possible Classroom Climate -in a literate environment, everything that happens in the classroom sends the message that reading is fantastic! -in such a classroom: -students are given plenty of time to read -students are given ample opportunities to share the information they learn and their responses to what they have read with each other -students are ought to listen to and respect the ideas of others -students learn that others will listen to and respect their ideas -this kind of climate is developed when teachers help students learn how to engage in discussions and other forms of sharing what they have read -one way students learn to do this is through watching you modeling how to be positive and supportive as you scaffold students' reading experiences Grouping Students for Instruction -one of the most important decisions that you make in your classroom is how to group students -dividing students into smaller groups is often helpful for a number of reasons: 1.keeping smaller groups of students on task is generally easier than keeping larger groups on task 2.smaller groups also you to provide instruction designed to meet the needs of specific students, differentiating your reading instruction 3.smaller groups allow more students to be actively involved in discussions -grouping has its downside -grouping has typically been based on reading ability, leading to a number of disadvantages, particularly for low ability groups -as compared to students in other groups, students in low-ability groups are often given:

-less time to read -spend more time on worksheets and less time being actively instructed -are asked fewer high-order questions -groups should NOT be permanent Reading and Learning in the Classroom-Intrinsic Motivation -students who are intrinsically motivated to read and learn do so because they expect positive and successful experiences; they do not expect praise or points -intrinsic motivation has been linked to the amount of reading, students successful use of comprehension strategies, and their growing sense of competence -interest: the liking of a topic, genre, and author, and the willingness to engage with that topic or read a book about it -interest has been shown to influence a student's attention, goals, and levels of learning -personal interests: intrinsic and endure over time -situational interests" can be content specific and activated by the teacher or other student -our goal as educators is to consider how to create a situational interest and turn that into personal interests -Hidi and Renniger (2006) propose a four step model for doing so: 1.triggered situational interest -can be triggered by personal identification with a character in a story or a topic 2.maintained situational interest -situational interest develops and is nurtured by persistent work with a book, books, or topic 3.emerging individual interest -the student begins to embrace the author or topic -they become curious and seeks answers when new issues arise 4.well-developed individual interest -student has very positive feelings for the topic, genre, or author and considerable knowledge -at this point, interest, knowledge, and value are all linked Making Connections to Students' Cultures and Lives Outside of School -although not every topic is going to be connected to students' home lives and cultures, many of them certainly should be -one of the easiest ways to do this is to carefully select the reading material for your classroom so that it reflects the issues, concerns, and cultures of your students -helping students connect to literature requires selecting the right books and making deliberate efforts to link those books to students' lives -it is up to you to tap into that knowledge -well-crafted book talks can move this process along -teachers should regularly give book talks, at least twice a week that discuss the genre, theme, and characters of new books

-the book talk should make an obvious attempt to relate the book to students' lives and interests -class projects can also help students connect home and school -students can choose to pursue a topic that has relevance to their lives -english language learners experience more success when they can make connections between what they already know and what they are learning to do -one way to do this is to have children create an identity text -identity text: one that is grounded in and reflective of children's lives -have children create memoirs -children who are english language learners can create memoirs that are dual-language texts Promoting Academic Values and Goals -motivation and engagement are intrapersonal values, and it is the student herself who must become motivated and engaged and we need to find ways to help students truly value work -every school day should start with a very short discussion about what we are going to do and why it is important -end every day with a short statement about what the class accomplished and what they learned -students have different goals when they enter your classroom -some are looking forward to the book you are reading aloud or the topic you are studying -the intrinsic interest drives them -others work hard because they want a good grade and all A's on their report card will make them and their parents proud -make learning experiences enjoyable -happiness should be a major goal of education, but frequently it is not Efficacy and Positive Attributions -students self-perceptions influence their motivation, their performance, and especially their sense of efficacy or confidence -the way people view their successes and failures (attributions), has a powerful affect on motivation -students should enter a new task or open a new book with the sense that they will succeed -if they do succeed, their sense of efficacy grows as does their motivation -if they fail and do so repeatedly, they acquire a sense of learned helplessness -attribution theory: deals with student's perceptions of the causes of their successes and failures in learning -helps to explain and underscore the importance of success to student motivation and engagement -in deciding why they succeed or fail in reading tasks, students can attribute their performance to ability, effort, luck, the difficulty of the reading task, or the kindness of teachers -learned helplessness: -children who experience learned helplessness in reading are apt to be nervous, withdrawn, and discouraged when they are faced with reading tasks

-children are unlikely to: -be actively engaged in reading -have goals and plans when they read -monitor themselves when they are reading to see if the reading makes sense -check themselves after reading to see if they have accomplished the reading goal -we need to avoid this debilitating cycle of negative attributions and learned helplessness -Jerry Costello (2nd grade teacher) suggests four approaches: 1.make students reading experiences successful ones 2.tell students that their efforts make a difference 3.avoid competitive situations in which students compare how well they read to how well others read -instead, focus student's attention on what they personally gained from the selection 4.try to provide a number of reading activities in which the goal is simply to enjoy reading The Importance of Appropriate Challenges -all readers need to undertake some challenging tasks -a researcher has learned that facing and meeting significant challenges in one of the most self-fulfilling and rewarding experiences we can have -however, when we present students with challenges, we need to be certain that they clearly understand the goals toward which they are working, to give them challenges appropriate for their skills, and to provide them with whatever support they need to meet these challenges Using Cooperative Activities to Insure Active Participation -students are a lot more motivated when actively engaged in learning -activities include: -constructing models -role-playing teaching situations -doing experiments -creating examples -observing in classrooms and reporting back to peers -cooperative learning is another form of active learning that has become widely used; offers benefits and motivation -students in cooperative learning groups: -showed superior performance in academic achievement -displayed more self-esteem -accommodated better to mainstreamed students -showed more positive attitudes towards school -generally displayed better overall psychological health -displayed better interpersonal relationships -held regardless of differences in ability, sex, ethnicity, and social class

-better at resolving conflicts -better at sharing responsibility for each other's learning rather than compete with each other -cooperative groups can work as literature circles, book clubs, inquiry groups developing a report, or teams experimenting with a new science concept Motivating Students Extrinsically -extrinsic motivation is typically employed by teachers and parents -extrinsically motivate readers strive to attain some goal that it outside the book or the task Praise and Points -praise can be effective, but it is not without its potential drawbacks -praise must be honest, and students must perceive it as honest -effective praise is given only in response to students' efforts and achievements, specifies just what students have accomplished to earn the praise, and helps students better appreciate their work -before we can praise, we have to help students set goals -praise has an effect once students recognize their own achievements Grades -grades have little effects on students' motivation to read, but they can be useful to motivate some learning activities -rewards other than praise (points, stars, books, pizzas) can sometimes be effective in the short run -one of the most consistent and strongest cautions in the literature on motivation is that extrinsic rewards can undermine motivation in the long run -our goal should always be to demonstrate to students that reading is worthwhile for its own sake -our greatest tool in accomplishing this goal is giving students good books and other materials to read and scaffolding their efforts so that they can successfully comprehend Technology -Accelerated Reader and Reading Counts are two computer based programs that are widely used to promote reading and provide motivation -programs are designed to motivate reading, promote increased time for reading, assess comprehension with computer-based tests, and reward students with points when they have successfully read a book and passed a test -the programs do have their pitfalls -some students do not like to read for points, and many books are not yet on the system -the largest problem is that points or other extrinsic rewards do not build a long-term love of reading Factors that Undermine Motivation 1.physical environment -few examples of students work and accomplishments are shown on walls -the room is sparsely decorated, with few posters, pictures, etc to make it more attractive and inviting 2.psychological environment

-teacher does not have or communicate to students that she has high expectations for their learning -atmosphere fostered by teacher is not cooperative, and no sense of community is developed -teacher gives students very little praise 3.classroom instruction -teacher does not check for understanding before moving on -teacher does not use opportunities to connect lessons to other concepts in the curriculum, to previous learning experiences, or to the world outside of school -teacher is not fully prepared for day's lessons 4.classroom management -teacher does not check student progress as they work and fail to notice student confusion -teacher uses negative, punishing techniques to maintain order in the classroom Assessing Student's Motivation -after spending a few minutes in an elementary classroom, it becomes obvious who are readers and who are not: -readers have books on their desks (often more than one), non-readers do not -during free time, readers read and non-readers wander the room looking for a book that is quickly abandoned -during weekly visits to the library, readers easily find the next book, non-readers need guidance -McKenna and his colleagues developed a survey tool that helps to quantify a student's motivation for reading at home, recreational reading, and their motivation to read in school with either print or digital sources -students respond to questions like "How do you feel about reading news online?", "How do you feel about reading anything printed?" on a six-point scale (6 is very good, 1 is very bad) -this survey could help teachers understand student's attitudes toward reading in school versus reading at home with different types of text -MRQ (Motivation for Reading Questionnaire): developed by Wigfield and Gunthrie (1997), examines 11 dimensions of motivation -curiosity, involvement, competition, recognition, grades, challenge, work avoidance, social, compliance, efficacy, and importance -provides considerable information, but so far no one has demonstrated that the information provided would help a teacher create a successful motivation program -RMQ (Reading Motivation Questionnaire): simpler tool that looks at 6 factors of reading motivation -curiosity, involvement, emotional regulation (intrinsic motivation) -grades, competition, and social recognition (extrinsic motivation) -information could possibly help the teacher design her classroom motivational program -could also be used in the classroom to evaluate a teachers success in building reading motivation over the year...