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Motivating Students to Read:

Information for Classroom Practices that Increase Reading, Motivation and Achievement

By Dr. Caroline Rees-Potter

Educators have long asked the question, "What motivates students to read?" This question includes asking what strategies, resources, programs and practices impact children to interest them so that they will engage in the task of reading.

The review of the publication "Motivating Students to Read," addresses this question with findings outlined by John T. Guthrie and Nicole M. Humenick from available research. The focus of their paper is on teachers and others who have an opportunity to implement classroom practices and to create educational environments for reading development.

Motivation is defined by the Gutherie and Humenick as a sense of engagement in an important task. It is not isolated from the language or cognitive processes of reading, but rather gives commitment, energy and direction to students' reading. Reading is interpreted as understanding the content of a text. The authors' overall search "was for experimental evidence regarding classroom conditions that are conducive to long-term motivational development."

To address the question of what motivates a student to read, the authors reviewed 22 studies that experimentally compared conditions expected to increase motivation with conditions not expected to increase motivation. All studies were related to reading from text or manipulating words meaningfully. Most of the students in the research projects were aged eight to14 years.

The results of the Gutherie and Humenick's analysis of the 22 studies using effect size indicated four areas of moderate to high significance in positively impacting students' motivation to read. The four areas included:

• Knowledge Goals
• Students Choices
• Interesting Texts
• Collaboration.

Research reviewed in the area of Knowledge or Content Goals revealed that teachers can help students make the content of texts richly rewarding by "enabling students to use their background knowledge and experience, arranging for hands on activities that arouse curiosity that can be satisfied through reading, and modeling behaviours of the curious reader who seeks to understand texts as fully as possible."

Examples cited were use of themes in student projects extended over a period of time, expecting students to explain the meaning of text to another individual and teachers' use of effective feedback on student progress toward attainment of specific content reading goals that have previously been set.

Research reviewed in the area of Student Choice revealed that student motivation, interest and time spent in reading increased in classes where teachers provided choices of reading activities.

Specific examples of choices offered by teachers to their students included which book to read, where to do the reading within the classroom, how to respond, whether to read alone or with a partner and which genre and authors to follow. Some of the research suggested that the role of choice in motivation for reading may influence children from diverse cultural backgrounds differently. Student choice was often integrated with other classroom practices.