Role of Motivation in Reading REED 663 DR. SHARON PITCHER

Rafe Esquith http://www.youtube.com Rafe Esquith, the author of Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire, takes children whose first language is not English and receive free lunch and teaches them Shakespeare. Listen to how he motivates students. Go to U Tube and put “Rafe Esquith” in the search engine. Watch his lecture and the “Light Your Fire” video. You may want to watch some of the other clips available on his school. The Bad Metrics video addresses text prep. http://www.youtube.com

Blessing Books Carefully choose a few books to share that will motivate students to read (series books, favorite author, a different genre). Choose a small piece to read aloud from each. Dr. Linda Gambrell In the blog for this class, you will be asked to bless one book that students would like and one adult book to recommend to your classmates. Start thinking about what books your are going to bless. In your blog response share what elements in the book would be appealing.

Research suggests that the following are crucial to motivation: Choice (Why do all of the students have to read the same book or story?) Books on Tape (These are great at a center with the book, of course. Make sure that the total book is read so the students follow the words.) Illustrations Genres (Not all students like fiction)

Genres These are all of the types of text that we read: And More… Fiction Non-Fiction Poetry Opinion (OpEd) Graphic Novels Newspapers Comic Books Magazines And More…

Text Level What can a teacher do, you ask? If a book is too difficult, students gets frustrated. Many struggling readers choose books too difficult as status symbols. What can a teacher do, you ask? Have you ever heard of the 5 Finger Rule? The rule is simple - a child has to read one page of a book he/she wants to borrow with less than five mistakes in order to borrow it. Also, providing books that look more difficult than they really are when you compute the reading level (How do you do this - you will learn many ways in the Leveling PowerPoint in a future class.)

Multicultural Considerations – appeal to diversity This is often very misunderstood. Multicultural means that a book will appeal to students of many cultures. Can all of the children you are assigning the book to make a connection with something in the text? This needs to be carefully thought about when choosing books for your text set.

An Example of a Multicultural Book John Philip Duck by Patricia Polacco Many cultures are represented and students can identify with whether this is the same or different than their lives. Check inside the book to see an example. Go to www.amazon.com and put the title in search - Then click on “Look Inside.

Motivating Environments for Literacy Instruction

Children engaged… At a literacy center – notice how simple the materials are.

A Classroom Library In a New York City School Books are easy for the children to look through and are divided into genres. Additionally, children can easily put them back.

A Wonderful Word Wall With literacy center bins under it From Pimilico Elementary School in Baltimore City.

Children at a Center They were so engaged that they did not even realize they were having their picture taken.

Organization Area in a Trailer This New York School was all in trailers. This area contained literacy centers in bins. At center time the bins were put in different places in the room and then returned here at the end of the language block.

Readers’ Notebook Place where children respond to their reading. Children keep lists of books they read. Children keep lists of books that they want to read.

Literacy came alive in classroom… And children’s literacy scores soared!

A Little Bit About Assessing Motivation Students are motivated by different things. In your reading for this class, you will learn about the MRP and AMRP. Your focus for this class is on what can be learned by them.

Motivation to Read Profile Original MRP Survey measured “Self Concept as a Reader” and “Value of Reading” Conversational Interview Adolescent Motivation to Read Profile (AMRP) - A Reading for this Week: Survey revised to include Instructional Strategies, Self Concept and Value Conversational Interview revised to capture out-of-school literacies

RESEARCHERS SUGGESTED THAT TEACHERS: Recognize the multiple literacies in which students are engaged in outside of the classroom and find ways to incorporate them into classroom instruction Model our own reading enjoyment Embrace engaging activities, such as literature circles and book clubs, into regular instruction in secondary schools.

From Here Read the selections on the Direction Sheet for Class 2. I have included a Motivation Jeopardy where you can test your knowledge and also see how motivating this strategy can be, too. The Motivation Jeopardy and the Jeopardy template (so you can make your own) are both include under Course Documents in Blackboard. You can receive one extra credit point if you try the Motivation Jeopardy and post your score on the Café Discussion Board. Participate in the Blog for this week.