Motivating Young Readers in Your Classroom (and Exploring Picture Books)

1. Motivating Young Readersin Your Classroom(and Exploring Picture Books) EDC423 Dr. Julie Coiro

2. Today’s Learning Objectives • Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic literacy motivations and their connection to classroom culture and literacy instruction • Identify several ways to learn more about your students’ literacy motivations in ways that can guide instruction • Picture Book Festival! [Awareness]

3. What is literacy motivation? • The reasons, purposes, and goals for reading and writing - • They are multidimensional (many levels and layers) and diverse (many reasons) • Do you like to read? Write? • Are you good at reading? Writing? • What do you read? What do you write? • Why do you read? Why do you write?

4. Types of motivation • Intrinsic motivations • Goals that are internal to the learner and guided by personal interests and private experiences • Extrinsic motivations • Goals that originate outside the learner (often guided by parents and/or teachers) - guided by points, stars, external rewards

5. Eight distinct motivations for literacy (Sweet & Guthrie, 1996) • Involvement • Curiosity • Challenge • Social Interaction • Compliance motivation • Recognition • Competition • Work Avoidance INTRINSIC MOTIVATION EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION

6. Group Activity • Developing Motivated, Lifelong Readers In Your Classroom • Characteristics • How can teachers help? • Results • 15 minutes in small groups • 15 minutes as a whole group

7. What can we do to foster External Motivation? • Do certain amount = prize! • Build on their interests with similar genres • Social acceptance; • Spark interest with ANY topic! • Social interaction – get involved with others who like reading - they learn through modeling • You get to share what you read or write • Vary the group size – large or small

8. What can we do to foster Intrinsic Motivation? • Help set personal goals • Paired reading – peer reading • Keep modeling – they should keep doing it! • Do read-alouds with harder books – and easier books

9. What can we do to foster External Motivation? • Role play /drama to spark students’ interests • Display books - talk about stories • Elicit a personal response (alternative to avoid writing) • Set up a reward system • Set up a fun place to read (comfortable) • Use a candy drawer after explaining • Keep a reading log - pages read, short summary • Competition/reward/punishment

10. What can we do to foster Intrinsic Motivation? • Allow choice in what to read and how to respond and with whom they interact • Ask them about their likes and dislikes (especially about reading) ** • Model excitement/passion - give a booktalk • Teach students HOW to choose books • Interdisciplinary connections

11. Why should you know about the differences in motivations? • DANGER: When students are rewarded for completing tasks, intrinsic motivations decrease (Cameron & Pierce, 1994) • Decreases in engagement time and attitudes toward reading • Students who were rewarded LESS during free time read MORE (they attributed the cause of their reading to internal factors like interest & curiosity) • Students who were rewarded MORE during free time read LESS (they attributed reading to external factors like points, grades, & stickers)

12. Why should you care? • Intrinsic motivations are imperative to lifelong, voluntary reading • Intrinsic motivations are vital to higher-order strategy development • Leads to deeper meaning-making • internal metacognitive monitoring, clarifying, and reflecting • Otherwise, you have “Fake” readers! (Kelly & Clausen-Grace, 2008)

13. What makes students want to read? (Worthy, 2002) • Provide engaging instruction • Model everyday excitement about books • Reading for enjoyment • Choice and variety in reading materials • Teach students how to choose their own books • Interest Inventories (see examples in handouts)

14. Online Reading Locations to Motivate Young Readers There’s TONS of informational text at a reading level kids can enjoy!

20. Setting up classroom routines (Chapter 5, p. 60-61) • Provide variety and choice; self-selection • Encourage social interaction • No points to “hold accountable” • Help students select books with Booktalks and 5 finger test • Strategy conferences: (coaching, monitoring, and facilitating) • Short response log (p. 72) - I’m wondering…I can see a clear picture of…I made a connection to…I was confused when…

21. Measuring Young Children’s Reading Motivations • How did the authors of your two readings learn about literacy motivations? • Reading - Interest Inventories (see handouts) • Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (McKenna & Kear, 1990) • Help plan classroom library • Guage movement from beginning - middle - end of the school year (an increase of 5 or more points on subsections; 7-8 points on total score reflects growth)

22. Measuring Young Children’s Reading Motivations • Motivation to Read Profile (Gambrell et al, 1996) • Examines self-concept for reading and value of reading • The Reader Self-Perception Scale (Henk & Melnick, 1995) • Devise ways to enhance children’s self-esteem in reading and to increase their motivation to read

23. Today’s Learning Objectives • Compare and contrast intrinsic and extrinsic literacy motivations and their connection to classroom culture and literacy instruction • Identify several ways to learn more about your students’ literacy motivations in ways that can guide instruction

24. Homework • GENRE: Chapter 3 - Picture Books • STRATEGY: Chapter 5 - Predicting • Next week - Exploring Picture Books and Embedded Strategy Instruction

25. Intrinsic Motivation • Provide lots of time for indep. Reading • Help readers sort out what types of books they like and label them • Variety: old/new, different formats • Chances to share with their peers • More read-alouds • Show enthusiasm • Plan for activities that go along with books

26. Extrinsic Motivation • Book logs with different genres • Accelerated Reader