Saturday, April 4, 2015
Motivation for Reading and Writing
Positive reinforcement and motivation are key for having a successful classroom. You want to give your children positive feedback as well as motivate them to do their best. But motivating your students to read and write can be difficult because this is not something they may enjoy to do. This chapter discusses many ways that you can get your children motivated about reading and writing.
When trying to motivate your students in your lessons that pertain to reading and writing, they should include relevance and authenticity. The book stated that when children do not understand the relevance for a given lesson, motivation declines drastically. I find this incredibly true and I have seen it first hand in the classroom. Have you ever seen students loose motivation because children do not understand the relevance of what is being taught? Another way to increase the motivation of your students is by social collaboration. Children are easily going to learn from each other in their social interactions.
The book gave plenty of examples on how to motivate your students when they are reading or writing. You want to provide the students with a literacy-rich environment and make them feel welcomed. You also want to provide reading materials that are not only interesting to the students but also reading materials they are not going to get frustrated with but still challenges them. When reading to your students, you will want to approach it as something you enjoy do and read to them in a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere. If the children see you doing this and see that you enjoy reading, then they are going to model you. Another motivational tool I thought was helpful was allowing the children to take the books home from your classroom. This shows students that reading can not only be done in the classroom but also in the atmosphere of their home.
You want your classroom to feel welcoming and inviting to your students. This allows them to open up and express themselves which could be through reading or writing. You want a literacy-rich classroom so the students realize how important reading and writing is but it should also be enjoyable for them. Overall, this chapter gave great examples on how you can motivate your students to read and write especially when they get discouraged. Can you think of anymore ways to motivate your students in reading and writing?
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I really like some of the ideas you mentioned for motivation. Relevance and authenticity are definitely key to motivation. Some students do not see the point in doing things when they don't see it as relatable to their own lives. I remember thinking this about algebra 2. Maybe have students read about current events that directly effect them, or events that are being discussed at large. I'm trying to think of a way to make fiction reading relevant, maybe stories that teach us lessons? Another thing I liked that you talked about was allowing students to take books home. This was something I loved as a child, and it helped develop reading habits away from school. Having possession of a book that you can read when you feel like it really makes it a more special experience in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteHi Mollee! I couldn’t agree more! I am a big believer in positive feedback and using it to the best of the advantage for motivating the kids! In my experience, I had trouble with writing and my teacher always gave me the positivity that I needed in order to continue to enjoy the learning experience. I have seen other cases where students become discouraged and shut down when they don’t get the positivity that they need and their motivation fades. I agree, social collaboration is a great way to motivate others and nothing motivates students more than their own peers! I think that group work is a great way to promote connections and help students to motivate each other. I think that another way to motivate the students would be to communicate with them every week and check up with weekly journaling about the book that they’re reading. Also, communication with the student about problems that they might be having, as well as parents is a good way to keep them motivated.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen students loose motivation because children do not understand the relevance of what is being taught? If this question isn't the question of the day, I don't know what is. Even now as a college student I think to myself..am I ever going to use this. Like knowing about the shadowing on a painting from art history. Why do I need to know that? So yes I have seen students think that and say it. I was tutoring a little girl named Cinnamon (yes, like the spice) in math. She was working on multiplication. She flat out said, I'm never going to use this again so why am I even doing this. So I asked Cinnamon what she wanted to be when she grows up. Her response to me was she wanted to become a baker (yes, it is ironic and I knew her from the time she was born so she is a cutie) anyway.. I asked her a simple question. If you had a recipe that make 2 dozen cupcakes but you wanted to make 6 dozen cupcakes, how would you figure that out. Once she thought about the answer she realized that it was through multiplication. It is important that we as teachers tell our students the relevance of the information they are learning.
ReplyDeleteHi, Mollee! I really enjoyed your post. You hit some great points! Giving positive feedback to your students is very powerful. I too believe that a great reading motivation for students is to let them take the books home. There is more time for some students to read at home, then school, and also allows the parents to get involved with what they are reading. A literacy-enriched classroom is another great way to motivate students! Providing lots of different types of books for students to chose from, based on their interests, is really important.
ReplyDeleteI agree that positive feedback is a great motivational tool. I really liked that you brought up keeping the reading and writing instruction relevant. This has been a major issue for me as a student. When I find an assignment irrelevant it is very hard for me to actually force my self to do it. However, when an assignment is relevant I try very hard to complete it and get the most out of the experience for my own benefit. I also enjoyed your idea for letting students take the classroom books home with them. I think that even if a few books are lost a year the student having and owning a piece of literature for even a short amount of time is worth any price. I have witnessed the lack of motivation involved with a lack of relevance in my tutoring sessions in EDRD 430. My student hates reading and often would ask why we were doing what we were doing. I found that explaining the relevance of an activity even if it is obvious to you will help a student see and understand the relevance of an activity or assignment.
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