Working with young people in an educational setting can be an enlightening experience, and one can quickly discover that most young students will do almost anything possible to please their teacher. This can be especially true in the elementary grades, but oftentimes the enthusiasm shown by these youngsters begins to wane by the time they reach the middle school groups.
Teachers of middle school students are therefore faced with instructing students who may or may not be motivated to be instructed, and this can be a very difficult situation, specifically when regarding a basic skill such as reading. Experts agree that "reading is a fundamental and necessary skill in order to successfully participate in society, yet employers lament that high school graduates lack the necessary literacy skills to be productive employees" (Kelley, Decker, 2009, p. 467). Many times the lack of reading skills can be traced directly to the lack of motivation by students in the middle school grades regarding the skill of reading.
Students at the middle school age are going through some interesting changes in their lives; they are more social, more apt to face peer pressure, are oftentimes feeling much more independence from families and responsibilities, and are also facing physical and psychological changes to their bodies in the guise of puberty. Faced with these type of changes, oftentimes the student's priorities change. Not only do their priorities change but their confidence levels and competence to face challenges is often times questioned as well. One expert wrote that a "number of current theories suggest that self-perceived competence and task value are major determinants of motivation and task engagement" (Gambrell, Palmer, Codling, Mazzoni, 1996, p. 534).
If that is true, then students in middle school face lowered confidence at the same time as facing higher expectations; this can be a double whammy for the student who may not even enjoy reading in the first place. Another study determined that "when some students judge reading and literacy activities to be unrewarding, too difficult, or not worth the effort because they are peripheral to their interests and needs, they can become nonreaders" (Pitcher, Albright, DeLaney, Walker, Seunarinesingh, Mogge, Headley, Ridgeway, Peck, Hunt, Dunston, 2007).
The key to success in teaching reading, especially at the middle school age level, is to determine how to motivate the students to want to read. Motivating students has always been the key to successful learning and it is equally the key when approaching something that middle school students should already have the skills to accomplish. After all, most experts agree that students who have obtained a sixth-grade reading level are competent enough to continue reading improvement without a lot of reading instruction.
Many of the studies regarding the ability to read as practiced by middle school aged students focuses on the student's lack of motivation to even do so. The experts talk about how teachers can address this lack of motivation by either encouraging extrinsic or intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation addresses the use of various rewards and reward systems to increase the level of motivation, while intrinsic motivation is described as the individual student not having to be motivated by prizes or rewards for accomplishing what should be accomplished.
One recent national survey found that "65% of students did not have reading as a favorite acitivity...73% of students did not read frequently for enjoyment, and 59% of students stated that they did not believe that they learned very much when reading books" (Guthrie, Mcrae, Klauda, 2007, p. 238).
Overcoming those types of numbers as a teacher is a formidable task. It would seem that those students who answered the survey in such a manner have no intrinsic motivation at all. A successful teacher will need to have in his or her repertoire methods of instruction that will necessarily be very effective in increasing that level of motivation to one much higher plane.
One method of increasing intrinsic motivation is by ensuring that reading is an enjoyable pastime. This can be accomplished by finding books that will catch the student's interest. Finding books that middle school aged students will like is a relatively simple task. One method is to ask them what they would like to learn about, what they would find exciting in a book, or what would grab their interest. Once the teacher has garnered that information then an additional step would be to share those books in class. Reading books in class with each student participating may be a method that would work, but the teacher would have to ensure that the books chosen are of...
Reading is a fundamental part of a child's education. Many techniques have been utilized in an effort to make learning to read and reading comprehension easier for students (McCray 2001). One such technique is Sustained Silent Reading (SSR). The purpose of this discussion is to investigate Sustained Silent Reading as it relates to reluctant middle school aged children. Let us begin our investigation by discussing the theoretical framework of Sustained
attitudes and values of high school students. Reforms to the high school system in the United States are also explained. Additionally, the reason why students need not be involved in the planning of reforms is elucidated. High School Students: their Attitudes and Values Of a crucial age, climbing a milestone, conscious to their fullest with no fear of prospects, high school students have interested researchers and policy makers for centuries. They
Causative Analysis There are several causes to why the students did not pass the state standardized test in mathematics and in language arts. It is strongly believe that the students were not adequately prepared for the test because they had not been completing the required assignments and attending the online classes offered by their teachers. Their lack of School Improvement 7 participation in the class, has lead them to a failing
Extrinsic rewards should only be used when other efforts to actively engage students in learning has failed; (3) In the event extrinsic rewards must be utilized, they should be "just powerful enough to control behavior" and should be eliminated in phases before all intrinsic motivation is lost. Jones, Vermette, and Jones posit in their article, "An Integration of "Backwards Planning' Unit Design with the "Two Step" Lesson Planning Framework," planning and
School Choice Program This study aimed to determine the impact of school choice through a comparative study of two private schools, which serve primarily, or exclusively African-American students, and a public school. Data in student achievement in math and reading and data on student attendance were used to determine the impact of choosing a school. Qualitative data derived from interviews with administrators and faculty as well as classroom observation were used to
Reading Comprehension in the Middle Grades Reading comprehension refers to a complex, active process that incorporates reader-related (linguistic awareness), activity-related (studying for the purpose of keeping information in mind for retrieval in future) and text-related (high-level vocabulary) variables, all of which are correlated in a broader socio-cultural context. However, studies on development of reading comprehension have, thus far, been typified by focus on student traits and/or specified instructional systems (Carnegie Council
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now