FEATURE ARTICLES

Motivating and engaging students in reading

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You can certainly ignore motivation if youchoose. But if you do, you maybe neglect-ing the most important part of reading.There are two sides to reading. On oneside are the skills which include phonemic

awareness, phonics, word recognition, vocabulary, andsimple comprehension. On the other side is the will toread. A good reader has both skill and will. In the "will"part, we are talking about motivation to read. This de-scribes children's enjoyments, their wants, and theirbehaviors surrounding reading. A student with skillmay be capable, but without will, she cannot become areader. It is her will power that determines whether shereads widely and frequently and grows into a studentwho enjoys and benefits from literacy. So we think youshould care about motivation because it is the other halfof reading. Sadly, it is the neglected half.

What is motivation?Many teachers think of a motivated reader as a studentwho is having fun while reading. This may be true,but there are many forms of motivation that mightnot be related to fun and excitement. What we meanby motivation are the values, beliefs, and behaviorssurrounding reading for an individual. Some productivevalues and beliefs may lead to excitement, yet othervalues may lead to determined hard work.

We talk about three powerful motivations thatdrive students' reading. They operate in school and out ofschool, and they touch nearly every child. Some studentsmay have all of these motivations and some may haveonly one. For some students, these motivations appear inthe positive form driving students toward reading. Forother students, the motivations are negative and pushstudents away from books. When we talk about readingmotivations we refer to (1) interest, (2) dedication, and(3) confidence. An interested student reads because heenjoys it; a dedicated student reads because he believesit is important, and a confident student reads because he

can do it. We discuss each of these in this essay with anemphasis on dedication.

Research says that skill and will (motivation) gotogether. Usually, students who are gaining in skill aregaining in motivation as well; a student whose motivationincreases because she is inspired by a terrific teacher willgrow in reading skills. Research also says that thesethree motivations are independent. A student may beinterested and read for enjoyment, but not dedicatedand not seeing the importance of hard work in reading.A student may also be interested and want to read butnot be confident in her ability. So confidence can be aproblem when other motivations are not a problem for astudent. Research also says that motivation comes fromthe teacher in the classroom. Of course, motivation maybe stimulated by home and may be influenced by peers,but the teacher is the main actor influencing a student'sdevelopment of reading motivation.

What can a teacher do?We offer six motivation practices that teachers canimplement daily in the classroom. These practicescan be brought into every lesson and directed to everystudent. Teachers do not have to wait for motivation tocome from the outside. They can make it happen anytime they want to implement one of these six practices.Research undergirds the impact of these practiceson students becoming avid readers and on studentsbecoming achieving readers. We provide examples ofthese practices from the literature and from our ownexperiences in our research and teaching.

Motivations to read—interest, confidence,dedication

InterestWhen we think of motivation our mind first turns tointerest. Motivation is enjoying a book, being excitedabout an author, or being delighted by new information.Researchers refer to interest as intrinsic motivation.

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meaning something we do for its own sake. On a rainyday, we might rather read our favorite mystery than doanything else. We are not trying to get a reward whenfalling into a novel.

Motivation also brings to mind the reward forsuccess. Who doesn't like to win a trinket for hitting thetarget with a dart at the State Fair? Who doesn't want toearn serious money for working hard in a career? Theseare extrinsic rewards because someone gives them to us.We do not give them to ourselves, and these rewards dopropel us to put out effort, focus energy, and get up inthe morning.

Yet, extrinsic rewards do not motivate readingachievement in the long term. Students who read onlyfor the reward of money, a grade, or a future job arenot the hest readers. The reason is that if you read forthe reward of a good quiz score, what happens after thequiz is that you stop reading. If the test score is the onlything that matters, it is OK to take shortcuts, not reallyunderstand, or cheat. It encourages students to becomemore interested in the reward than the learning. Noneof these generate long-term achievement. Sometimes areward, such as candy or early recess, will jump-starta group of students to read in this moment for thispurpose. But if the motivation is not intrinsic, it willnot increase achievement in the long term.

For some individuals, grades represent their qualityas a student and a reader. Being a high achiever is asymbol of how they are doing. A high grade is an iconof success and these students strive to feel successful.One student told us that he read as practice to improveas a reader and get hetter grades. He said, "Reading alot helps you read better 'cuz at first I wasn't a very goodreader but now I'm doing real good." This point cameup again and again. Another boy said, "If I keep readingthen like you can do better in high school and thenyou'll get good, hetter grades." Readers who identifywith school see grades as an emblem of their successand a reason to have confidence.

Interest comes in two forms—situational andenduring. Situational interest is fascination with adetail in the here and now: a picture in a hook, a linkin a Website, a funny comment by a character, or anamazing fact ahout animals will all excite situationalinterest. This does not last until tomorrow or next week.Situational interest does not generate achievementhecause it is locked into the local event. Situationalinterest can hecome enduring if it recurs with teacher (orother) continuing support. If a student finds one type ofnovel he likes, such as realistic fiction, and is helped tofind more and to understand them fully, he may, overtime, grow an enduring motivation for reading fiction.But the situational motivation is not sufficient to assurethe full maturation of intrinsic motivation. One of ourgoals in schools is to foster intrinsic motivation, theenjoyment and fulfillment in reading.

Confidence as a readerBelief in yourself is more closely linked to achievementthan any other motivation throughout school. Thereason is that confidence, which refers to belief in yourcapacity, is tied intimately to success. This link occursfor simple, daily reading tasks. A student who readsone page fluently thinks he can read the next page inthe same book proficiently. The link is also forged forreading in general. A student who reads fluently andunderstands well is also sure of himself as a reader. Inand out of school, people like the things they do well.

Conversely, students who struggle begin to doubttheir abilities. They expect to do poorly in reading,writing, and talking ahout text. The real dilemma isthat lower-achieving students often exaggerate theirlimitations. Believing they are worse than they reallyare, they stop trying completely. Retreating from alltext interactions, they reduce their own opportunity todo what they want to do more than anything—to bea good reader. Their low confidence undermines themeven further in a cycle of douht and failure. By middleschool, hreaking this cycle is a formidable challenge forteachers.

Partly due to their long history of difficulty,middle school students need a safe environment. AsNicole Connolly, a middle school teacher, said abouther struggling readers:

I know from a teacher's perspective, the firstthing that you do in the classroom is that youhave to create a safe environment, an environmentwhere they feel comfortable, they feel safe, theyfeel respected and they feel heard. Ahsolutelyunder no circumstances is any child ever goingto be laughed at for saying anything wrong orthat seems off the mark. Especially teachingReading/Language arts, sometimes the poetrycan be a little deep and for example, today thepoem was about suicide and you know there areraw feelings that start to come out so you haveto set that environment. By this point, I am aquarter ofthe way through the school year so thatenvironment is set in my room. It's very trustingright now, but that's the first thing you have todo is just make it a safe environment. When therelationships start to build, you are really givingeach child a voice that only comes from confidentrelationships. It's not easy.

For many students, a trusting relationship withtheir teacher makes all the difference in huildingconfidence.

DedicationAlthough intrinsic motivation is desirable because itis gratifying for the student, and because it energizes

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students to achieve, this type of motivation is not alwayspossible in school. There are assignments that are notdesirable to a student, yet are part of the curriculum.There are books that do not appeal to some individuals,yet at a given moment in a given school, it is necessaryto read them. What motivation enables students to readin this situation? The reason to read in this case is thestudents' belief that reading is important, the students'persistence in reading whatever the assignment, and thestudents' organization that enables them to put fortheffort effectively. We call this dedication.

Every student has the potential to be dedicated.Skill may be hard for some students to develop, butdedication is related to will. It is up to a student to decidewhether to be dedicated or not. Students are eitheravoidant, dedicated, or somewhere in between the two.In this section, we will describe avoidant and dedicatedbehaviors in the words of middle school students.These signs are showing their value of reading, beingwell organized, and making efforts to be successful inreading. Essentially, dedicated students persist, plan,a.nd place apriority on their reading. These are the threekey signs of dedication in students.

Signs of dedicationThe primary signs of dedication are persisting, valuingand planning.Persisting. One of the most important distinctions be-tween dedicated and avoidant students is that avoidantstudents do not make the connection between their ef-forts and the outcomes. A seventh grade teacher, Tay-sha Gateau-Barrera, told us that "Dedicated studentsknow that they don't improve by mistake. They makecontinued efforts to try hard and be well-organized be-cause they want to be successful in school."

Avoidant students make up excuses, avoid eyecontact, or lack organizational skills. In our interviewswe asked students to give an example of a time whenthey avoided a reading assignment:

Interviewer: Can you give an example of aschool reading assignment you andyour friends avoided?

Student: I didn't want to do it because itwas kind of hard. And so, I kepton walking around the classroomtrying to avoid it. I didn't wantto do this because it was fifteenminutes of class and I didn't havetime to finish it so I didn't do it.

Interviewer: Can you think of another exampleof a reading assignment that youand your friends tried to avoid?

Student: Uh-uh. Because after that wefailed.

For these students, avoidance had unfortunateconsequences. Avoidance is a particularly powerfulsign because it stops all learning abruptly. If a studentwants to read and tries to read well she may learn. Ifanother student refuses to interact with text, all hopefor gaining skill, knowledge, or experience from textis dashed.Valuing the practical and personal. The centerpiece ofdedication to reading is believing in its importance. Inour interviews with students, many talked about thepractical importance for reading. But they also they alsotalked about the role of reading in helping them forman identity. One struggling reader said:

Reading is important 'cause basically you needit for everything really. You need it like if you'regoing shopping, in a restaurant, obviously ineducation, when you're reading the newspaper,or reading a book or in everyday life you willneed it. I guess that's why I love acting nowbecause to get by as a youngster, I played thepart of a reader and in that way I developed acoping strategy. In secondary school, everythingchanged because it was more competitive. I gotbullied because I had to get the teacher to comeand read to me. Recently I had the experience ofbeing Mary Warren in the play The Crucible. Iwas honored I had been chosen to read the part,but petrified I couldn't come up with goods. Iallowed myself to embrace the character, evenusing my fear of reading to empathize with thecharacter's fear of being in the courtroom. I lovereading and the feeling it gives me and I hope Iwill always feel like this, willing to accept biggerreading challenges (Barden, 2009, p. 298).

Valuing knowledge—from reading. Dedicated studentsread to attain information that expands their knowl-edge of their perceived world. Reading is a vehicle totake them to the knowledge they want. Unlike the kidswho are reading for practice, these students seek infor-mation for its own sake.

One middle school student said:

Interviewer: Does reading information bookshelp you?

Student: Well, it informs us because we readabout the Titanic, and it happenedon April 12. It's not boring, it'smore like fun because they giveyou information and stuff aboutthe past.

This high-achieving, dedicated student valued theknowledge learned from many different informationbooks over an extended period of time:

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Interviewer: Do you learn anything frominformation books in school?

Student: It actually teaches you things andmakes you really think about lifethat's going on on this earth.

Interviewer: Can you think of some readingassignments that you had to dowhere you actually learned some-thing new? Something you didn'tknow before?

Student: In science [we read about] thisbacteria that I didn't know aboutand it's called hiking disease.When you're hiking and you getsome water from the pond and it'sthis little bug that if it hits you toolong it can make you very sick.

Interviewer: Okay. How about another classwhere you learned somethingnew?

Student: In social studies because we had totalk about South Africa and coun-tries.

Interviewer: How long have you felt that youcan learn something new fromreading assignments?

Student: Before middle school.

Some students have career goals that they link toschool subjects. Here is a dedicated female:

Values for the future. Dedicated high school studentsthink about their future. Here is one example:

Interviewer: Why do you think it's importantfor you to be a good reader?

Student: Well I guess if you are a goodstudent and get a good educationthen you can go somewhere in life.

Interviewer: Can you tell me why — why do yousay it's very important for you toread?

Student: Because by being a good studentyou get in good colleges, and that'swhat I'm trying to do.

Another dedicated,reported:

high-achieving student

Interviewer: Can you tell me more about whyyou said being a good reader willhelp you in the future at school?

Student: Being a good reader will help youin the future because like if you gota job, you read a lot, like, even ifyou didn't like it. If you didn't readin school, you wouldn't know themeaning of it.

Interviewer: Can you think of some examples ofreading assignments that you hadto do and you believed those willhelp you in the future?

Student: I sort of want to be a vet when I getolder, so readings in science andlearning about chemicals help me.Learning how to write things andall that stuff will help me later on.

Interviewer: And how long have you felt thatreading things like that will helpyou in the future?

Student: For a while cuz my parents saidthey will.

We can all learn from a page out of the bookwritten about Whitney High School in Cerritos,California. After languishing for years in poverty andlow achievement, this school was transformed by acharismatic principal into the highest achieving school(highest SAT scores) in California. Every studentgraduated into college. Celia, a veteran of three yearsin the school, expressed the motivations of students atWhitney High. Asked to comment on the "best aboutlife and learning at Whitney" she replied:

Basically, all the academic courses themselves?Unimportant. While they do play [some] part inacademics in college I suppose, they won't stickwith you the rest of your life. What is the mostimportant, I think, is the discipline you have tolearn when your teachers force you to do thisassignment or read that book; it's the fact thatyou've had to do it that will be most important incollege because when mom and dad aren't therestrangling you and chaining you to your text, youwill get the lock and chain out and force yourselfto work (Humes, 2003, p. 139).

Celia went on to talk about the sources of her self-discipline when she was asked about what she thoughtinfluenced her:

I guess it comes out of knowing what yourparents want and striving to please them, yet alsoknowing what you want and trying to stay trueto yourself... In Whitney it was possible to findpeople who were like me, and liked me, ratherthan merely tolerated me. People who wereinterested in who I was... They were there whenhome life was rough, and held my hand walkingforward in my life (Humes, 2003, p.l41).

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Planning for literacy. The two main signs of dedication,persistence and valuing, often become visible in students'planning and organization. Dedicated students planfor success. They are organized with their assignmentsand their time. They schedule their work and do notforget their assignments. Dedicated students prioritizebecause being a good reader is part of who they areand getting good grades in reading is an icon of theirsuccess. VVithin their agenda of social, electronic,extracurricular, and out-of-school pursuits, dedicatedstudents prioritize reading as a necessity of life.

Connections of interest, confidence,and dedication

The motivations are synergistic. They work togetherto propel students forward. Interest and confidencefeed into dedication which is the factor that directlyimproves achievement. For example, some studentsenjoy reading. Their enjoyment leads them to committime, effort, and concentration, which produces goodgrades and high test scores. But this effort and valuingare the dedication part of motivation. So, interest leadsto dedication and the dedication impacts achievement.

A similar pattern works for confidence. Studentswho believe in themselves are willing to tacklechallenges. Their confidence leads them to work hardwhen they have to. Confident students commit timeand energy to tasks because they expect to succeed. Butagain, the time and effort are part of their dedication,and it is the dedication which generates a high standingin the class. In conclusion, interest and confidence do notempower students to achieve highly unless the studentsare also dedicated. But when interest and confidenceare harnessed to dedication, students will score highlyon tests, get good grades, and be worthy citizens of theliterate classroom (Cambria, Coddington, Guthrie, ôcWigfield, 2010). This leads to a focus on dedication inthe classroom.

Research base on dedication in readingW hen we refer to dedication in reading we mean doingthe reading because it is important. This meaning hastwo halves. On one side it is an action or a behavior.It is something students do. On the other side it is nota blind behavior, but is a deliberate decision to readbecause of values the student may hold deeply.

In doing the reading, a dedicated student doesnot work simply for a moment. He spends a long timewhen it is needed and puts forth supreme effort ifthere are obstacles or challenges in the reading. Thededicated reader finishes the work he begins. He isconscientious about simple but key school behaviors,such as handing in homework on time. In a survey ofsecondary students. Lens, Simons, and Siegfried (2002)reported that persistent students gave more effort to bea good student, invested long periods of time with close

concentration, studied frequently during the week, anddid homework on the weekends, as well as filling all theircourse requirements daily. Such persistence is positivelycorrelated with achievement and with feelings of beingcapable of completing the work successfully (Wigfield,Klauda, ôc Cambria, in press).

ValuingThe main reason that the dedicated reader persistsin working hard is because he believes that readingis important. For secondary students, this valuing iscentral to students' identity. Researchers show thatdedicated students strongly agree that "My performanceis important for becoming the person I want to be"(Greene, Miller, Crowson, Duke, ôc Akey, 2004). Inother words, for the dedicated student reading is usefulbecause it will help accomplish a future goal (WigfieldôcEccles, 2000).

Dedicated readers are likely to have a lot of self-discipline in general. They agree with statements suchas:

• "I am reliable."• "People can count on me to keep on schedule."• "I am good at resisting temptation."• "I am not easily discouraged" (Tangney,

Baumeister, ôcBoone, 2004).

Studies show that middle school students whostrongly agree with statements like these are exception-ally high achievers and students who strongly disagreewith them are low achievers (Duckworth ôc Seligman,2006). Students who avoid work are likely to believethey can succeed by just behaving nicely, impressing theright people, showing that they like the teacher, beinglucky, or getting other people to help them (Nicholls,Patachnick, ôc Nolen, 1985). In fact, self-discipline iseven stronger than IQ_in predicting grades in readingand other subjects (Duckworth ôc Seligman, 2005). Inother words, dedication to reading is actually the sameas self-discipline applied to reading in school.

Distinctions between dedicationand intrinsic motivationIt is important not to confuse dedication and enjoymentin reading. A person who reads all the time for pleasureand enjoyment is intrinsically motivated. Such aperson may put in high amounts of time and effort inreading, but it is for the benefit of enjoyment such assolving the mystery, following the character, or gaininginformation about a favorite topic. In contrast, thededicated student reads whether it is interesting or not.She does the reading because she values the benefit itprovides her. These benefits may include growing intothe kind of person she wants to become, attaining highachievement to show success as a student, or satisfyingfamily expectations that she has incorporated into her

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own value system. Therefore, reading for enjoymentand reading for dedication are two different things.Students can be one but not the other. One studentcould be dedicated but not interested, whereas anothercould be interested but not dedicated. A few studentsmay be both dedicated and interested. Researchers havefound that in the elementary grades, students who areboth dedicated and interested, achieve far higher, andread more proficiently than students who do not haveboth of these motivations working for them (Guthrie,Coddington, 6c Wigfield, 2009).

Dedication impacts achievementin grades K to 12.When children enter school some are more interestedin reading than others. Whether their parents readto them daily, they acquired a curiosity by being ex-posed to attractive books, or reading came easily tothem. Motivated first graders gain rapidly in readingachievement. In this case, motivation is usually interestand enjoyment in reading. It is not a one-way street.Children who grow rapidly in learning to read duringthe primary grades also grow in motivation. So skill inreading and motivation to reading are hand in glove andoperate reciprocally in the primary grades (Morgan 6cFuchs, 2007).

As students enter the intermediate grades of threeto five, some students become dedicated as well asinterested. They see reading as a contributor to who theywill become. It has been shown that interest alone doesnot assure that a student will be a high achiever in theintermediate elementary grades; however, dedicationalone does not assure high achievement either. Whenoutstanding students can integrate their interest (readingwhat they like) and dedication (reading what theymust), their test scores and grades show positive effects(Guthrie, Coddington, 6c Wigfield, 2009). As studentsenter middle school, their dedication to reading takesthe form of identity as a student. During grades six tonine, students who believe that being a good studentis part of who they are and those who embrace thegoals of learning through text are the highest achievers.Dedication takes over as the most reliable motivationto fuel achievement. Some of these students may alsobe intrinsically motivated and enjoy reading (Otis,Grouzet, 6c Pelletier, 2005), but that is not the primarydriver of their achievement across subject matters andthrough time.

At the high school level, dedication to readingmay take the form of attempting to understand texts asdeeply as possible. This aspiration to comprehend fullyis termed mastery goals by Pintrich and his colleagues(Pintrich, 2000). These students want to piece togetherthe different sections of a text and integrate them fullywith what they already know about the topic in theinformation or the character in literature. Not only

do these students read conscientiously, but they seekdeeper meanings and relish the challenge of complexityin books. Students who retreat from mastery goals andseek only to avoid getting low grades will obviously bethe lower achievers.

Across the grade levels, confidence in one's abilityto read is a key attribute of success. Overwhelmingly,at all grade levels, the lowest achievers believe that itis futile to hope that they can read like many of theirclassmates. They feel helpless. In their overwhelmingsense of incompetence, these students cannot put fortheffort even when it is possible to succeed. Thus, resil-ience is pervasive for achievers, and discouragement isthe hallmark of low achievers across the grade span ofK to 12.

Motivational practicesin the elementary classroom—CORI

There are five motivation practices that are wellsupported in research. These practices foster all ofthe motivations we mentioned including interest,dedication, and confidence. Found in the classrooms ofmany outstanding teachers in primary and intermediateclassrooms, these practices are not revolutionary, yetthey are all too rare. To investigate how to generateand sustain motivation, we developed Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction focused on grades threeto five. Over 10 years, we performed 11 experimentswith 75 statistical comparisons of experimental andcontrol groups (Guthrie, McRae, 6c Klauda, 2007),and other researchers have also documented theireffectiveness (Guthrie 6cHumenick, 2004). Currently,we are documenting the impacts of CORI in middleschool. These practices are not restricted to specialevents or grand occasions in which students have rareopportunities, such as a field trip to a museum. Theseare daily actions that motivate long-term achievementincluding the following: success, thematic units,choice, relevance, and collaboration or teacher-studentinteraction. We next address each of these.

SuccessIn some schools with some curricula, some adminis-trators claim that they support struggling readers bygiving them special instruction or collaboration withpeers to help them decipher the texts. But this is notsufficient. Texts have to be user friendly to the student.By user friendly, we mean that students can read a textaloud with 90% accuracy. Another standard for read-able text is summarizing. Students should be able towrite a coherent summary of a paragraph or a page inthe text used for instruction. Selecting readable textsis a challenge and often means that multiple texts areneeded in the classroom. In CORI, we provide a classbook for whole class instruction in a reading strategy;however, for guided reading, text-based writing, and

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other independent reading activities we provide tradehooks of multiple levels. A reasonable rule of thumh isthat the range of reading skill is the same number as thegrade level. For example, in Grade 5, there are five ormore years of reading level difference between the low-est and highest students. It is unthinkahle that studentsin Grade 5, who read at the third-grade level, can makesense of a text that is appropriate for a fifth grader read-ing at the eighth-grade level.

Much more differentiation of text, books, Internetsites, and materials within the classroom instructionalframework is necessary to insure the success of allstudents. Without success, the students never gainconfidence or they lose the resilience they had whenthey came to the classroom. Though the henefit of areadahle text is enjoyahle to imagine, the disaster ofan overly difficult text is a measurable consequence fordeepening the dilemmas of struggling readers.

Students' confidence or self-efficacy is increased hytheir experiences of success in reading. When teacherslocate texts at students' levels, and enable studentsto realize that they are reading them fluently withunderstanding, students gain confidence. Althoughit may sound Utopian, success is the royal road toconfidence. There is no alternative. Having a foothallstar come to school and say that the kids are all starsin reading is entertaining. But it does not fool studentsinto actually believing in their capacities. The footballstar may increase students' energy to read for a day. Butstudents' success in specific reading tasks with praisefrom the teacher will fuel their reading for the longterm. As Schunk (2003) and other researchers havereported, helping students perform competently, settheir own goals, use teacher feedhack, and gauge theirown skills are the key ingredients in nurturing self-confident readers.

Thematic unitAlongside success, the practice of providing a thematicunit is a powerful tool for developing students'confidence. Thematic units may be literary, topical, ordiscipline hased. For example, in CORI in elementaryschool, we provide thematic units on survival in plantand animal communities. We bring in informationbooks on ecology and how animals live together. Wealso integrate stories, legends, and novels such as Julieofthe Wolves by George, Hatchet by Paulsen, or Cadutoand Bruchac's Keeper of the Animals: Native AmericanStories and Wildlife Activities for Children. In teachingthe theme we emphasize the broad conceptual topicwith individual questions for the week and individualquestions for each day. We emphasize how answeringtoday's question relates to the general topic and howanswering it relates to yesterday's question. We help thestudents identify which portions of text are answeringthe questions for each day and how the readings across

time are expanding their knowledge of survival.A thematic unit across time has the henefit of

nurturing students' confidence in reading. When thestudents see the topics, key questions, and essentialportions of text linked together, they gain a sense thatthey can read. They expand their belief that they cananswer the questions and perform the reading activitiesthat enable them to he functioning members of a classdiscussion or a team project.

ChoiceA favorite motivator of many teachers is choice. Thereis nothing more gratifying than seeing a student whohas found the perfect hook or has discovered an authorshe can call her own. Beyond selecting books forreading, we promote many forms of mini-choices thatcan he applied in every lesson. For example, studentscan choose which piece of a text to read. In a novel,a student may select one character about whom tospecialize. She becomes expert on what this characterdoes, thinks, and feels. It is her character. While shemay know all the characters, the plot, and the theme,she nevertheless claims ownership of a significant sliceof the novel. In an information book reading activity,students can select a significant concept in which tospecialize. In a lesson on non-fiction, a teacher mayassign which page to read in a short section of a hook.Students can read to explain their section to the teamor the class. To show their understanding, students canchoose three of five questions posted on the overheadprojector to answer in a discussion or in writing. Onanother occasion, students may show their learning bychoosing whether to answer three teacher questions orto write a summary of a small section of text.

As one teacher reflected:

I have been in education for 15 years and Ihave always known that choice was huge. Butafter going through CORI and giving some ofthose reluctant readers those opportunities forchoice about books and partnerships, it was soempowering for them. I've actually done somethings to transfer that to what I continue to doin my classroom.

RelevanceTeachers practicing the art of relevance enable stu-dents to connect the hooks of instruction to their lives.In CORI for elementary school, we provide a simple,hands-on activity to generate interest in reading. Forexample, one hands-on activity we used was dissectingan owl pellet. As many teachers have experienced, thestudents scream with delight when they discover a skullof a mouse in the pellet from an owl. When they piecetogether the bones with the skull and decide that thisowl had eaten a mouse, they see animal survival in a

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totally vivid way. After this 20-minute experience, stu-dents read avidly for 5 to 10 days about how animalslive, find food, and defend themselves from predators.Providing the owl pellet experience is providing rel-evance for reading. Not only do books about owls andmice come to life, but the broader issues of prédation,competition, and food webs are suddenly interesting.A student has looked at his own owl pellet, has hada personal experience of excitement. This excitementtransfers to a text with photographs of plants, animals,and prédation. In middle school CORI, we are provid-ing similar relevance through videos of hunting in theSerengeti or symbiosis on a coral reef. For these middleschool students, the video experience generates intenseinterest in reading.

Practices of relevance in the classroom can takemany forms. For example, providing historical narra-tives about Central American Indians for Hispanic stu-dents from Central America is generating relevance fortext reading. Some forms of culturally relevant teachingmay generate relevance, but not all of them do. Hav-ing African American students read biographies ofBooker T. Washington and Harriet Tubman does notautomatically generate relevance simply because thetexts are about African Americans. If the students donot feel connected to those African Americans in thebiographies, relevance will not be generated. Culturalrelevance can be an especially powerful motivationalpractice for minority students if they frequently feellittle kinship and possess little background experiencewith traditional texts peopled with European Americanpopulations (Tatum, 2005).

Beyond locating books that students can connectto, teachers can create tasks that enable students to buildrelevance for text. For example, in the "bubble project"for fourth graders, teachers encouraged students toprovide a social critique of advertisements (Gainer,Valdez-Gainer, 6c Kinard, 2009). After locating ads forclothing to perfume to sports events, students studiedthe texts. They questioned the meanings, authors'intentions, and gender biases in the text. They wrotereplies to the ads in the form of a bubble spoken by acharacter. The students experienced humor, socialcritique, and sheer enjoyment in this literacy event.Students saw that the text was relevant not only to theirmaterial interest, but to their thoughts and attitudesabout popular culture. Such activities enable studentsto see that reading is important to their interests andtheir interactions with others.

Collaboration and relationship-buildingAt the elementary school level, social relationships areparamount for students' development as readers. InCORI, we provide partner reading, team summarizing,group posters, and peer conferencing. Each iscarefully orchestrated to assure full participation and

accountability, for individual work as well as for groupproducts.

In both primary and intermediate levels, researchsupports the power of motivational and emotional sup-port for building motivation. A nationwide observa-tional study of primary classrooms showed that whenteachers were sensitive to student interests, invited stu-dent input into classroom decisions, and avoided harshcriticism, students gained in reading achievement. Theeffect was strongest for at-risk students and low incomepopulations (Hamre 6c Pianta, 2006). For example,Mrs. Warren has morning meetings in her elementaryclassroom. She allows students to have friendly inter-actions and she greets each one by name daily. Theyshare recent experiences and build a repertoire of songs,games, and poems that encourage a sense of belonging(McTigue, Washburn, 6c Liew, 2009).

This collaborative emphasis may be especiallyvaluable for African American students. In a studyof 10- to 11-year old African American students.Dill and Boykin (2000) showed that collaborativelearning environments had advantages over individuallearning environments. A collaborative (or communal)learning setting increased the recall of stories thatwere read during collaborative interactions comparedto individual reading. More centrally, enjoyment ofthe learning activity, and the desire to participate insimilar activities in the future, were accelerated bythe collaborative learning structures for the AfricanAmerican students. One source of such a benefit maybe elaborated discussion.

Evidence suggests that African American studentsrespond to collaborative learning opportunities bydiscussing text in relatively elaborate ways. In anexperimental study, Webb and Farivar (1994) showedthat African American students who were taughtcommunication and helping skills in small groupwork during the reading of story problems had moreelaborative and rich discussions than comparison groups.On the other hand, European American studentsdid not benefit from the training in communicationskills. Thus, African Americans were more cognitivelyresponsive in social interactions around text, and thus,gained cognitive competencies in these settings.

Further evidence that teacher-student relationshipsin the classroom may be important to engagement andachievement in literacy was presented by Decker, Dona,and Christenson (2007). They examined the associationsbetween the teacher-student relationship and outcomes forAfrican American students who were behaviorally at-riskfor referral to special education. Students were identifiedby their teachers as having behavior problems. Participantswere 44 students and 25 teachers from two suburbanand three urban elementary schools in a mid-westernstate. A multi-rater, multi-method approach was used.As both teacher and student reports of teacher-student

The NERA Journal (2010), Volume 46(1) Feature Articles I 23

relationship quality increased, there were also increasesin positive social, behavioral, and engagement outcomes.Additional analyses of teacher-student relationshippatterns showed that as the relationship pattern improved,there were increases in positive social, behavioral, andengagement outcomes for students. Especially intriguingwas the finding that as kindergarteners increased in theirreporting of wanting to be closer to their teachers, theirletter naming fluency increased. Thus, cognitive effortin reading and social interactions with teachers andclassmates are intricately connected.

Teaching practices for middle school classroomsHow do middle school teachers foster the motivationof struggling students? Outstanding teachers whomotivate all their students offer a wide platform inthe classroom. They nurture confidence, dedication,and interest through many avenues. We next tap intothe experiences of other educators who recommendthe following: (1) creating relationships, (2) buildingsuccess, (3) assuring relevance, (4) fostering awareness,(5) affording choices, and (6) arranging social goals.

Teaching Practicesfor Motivation

Creating relationships

Building success

Assuring relevance

Fostering awareness

Affording choices

Arranging social goals

Aspects of Motivation

Confidence

Confidence

Dedication

Dedication

Interest

Interest

Creating relationshipsAs Nicole Connolly, a middle school teacher, said:

I think the number one influence for studentmotivation is relationships. Relationships, espe-cially at the middle school level, are key. It's notso much what it is that you teach the students,but what counts is the students knowing that youcare about them and that you are willing to showthat you care about them. Then they are willingto do what they need to do for you. So for me,definitely number one is relationship buildingwith the students.

This is accentuated for lower achievers. Studentswho struggle need to connect with their teachers beforethey will put forth the effort necessary for schoolsuccess. According to Santa (2006), the principal of anacademy for "students who don't do school," the contentand teaching techniques play second fiddle to humanrelationships. She says:

Students tend to work harder for teachers theylike and put little effort into classes where theyfeel disconnected and misunderstood. Strategicinstruction within classroom contexts wherestudents feel they belong plays an integral role inlearning. Students put more effort into learningwhen they have a relationship with their teachers;they don't want to let their teachers down (Santa,2006, p.472).

The research literature on the roles of teacher-student relationships and students' social motivationsin achievement is abundant. For example, studentswho seek to cooperate with the teacher and help otherstudents academically, consistently get better gradesthan students who are less socially adept. Obviously,a classroom with many students who are antisocial,disruptive, and abusive to other students will be muchless productive academically than other classrooms. Asa result, teacher time invested in creating an atmosphereof trust, respect for others, compliance with rules, andpersonal responsibility toward social norms will behandsomely repaid in student comfort and learning (seeWentzel Sc Wigfield, 2009).

Building successThe first step in ensuring success is making certainthat students can read the book in the curriculumwith relative ease. It is crucial to have books be likeGoldilocks' porridge: not too hard, not too easy, but justright. One middle school teacher said:

I had a little guy, Anthony, who was strugglingin choosing books. I took the time to let thatstudent know that I cared about how he wasgoing to choose and helped him find a goodreadability level for him. It was a good match; itwas a good fit and he finished a 220-page novel,which was huge for him. It was really cool. Thefather came in and wanted to meet me becausehis son in seventh grade had never read a novel.

Difficulty of books is the largest, single harrier tomiddle school students' confidence in reading. When stu-dents encounter a story that is beyond their comprehen-sion, or an information text with vocabulary that is utterlyimpossible for them, they not only reject the book butturn off from all reading. Our interviews with discour-aged struggling readers reveal one overwhelming theme:

• "The books are too hard."• "They are really confusing."• "I can't read the words."

Teachers often believe that challenging books aregood prods for student learning and the students need

24 I Feature Articles

to be working hard to gain skill. That may be true forhigh-achieving, confident readers. However, studentswith a history of not being able to read the texts inthe classroom have lost their confidence, have littleresilience, and may have developed many strategies ofavoidance, like procrastination.

The single largest factor contributing to lowreading achievement is avoidance of books, especiallyinformation texts, in all subject matters of literature,science, social studies, math, and others. Students whoinitially find reading a little tough tend to avoid thebook whenever possible and put in minimum effort.Obviously, this prevents them from gaining skill andthey enter a cycle of failure to read and avoidance. Themost powerful way to break this cycle is to locate booksthat are within the readability level of the learner.

Before students will try and try again to tacklenew challenges, they need to believe in themselves.This belief in oneself propels students toward higherachievement because they expect to succeed. Puttingforth effort in reading depends mainly on whether youhave succeeded in reading tasks in the past. A volumeof research shows that teachers who enable students tosucceed grow the confidence of their readers (Schunk,2003). Teachers can promote this confidence buildingby providing small steps for success. First, teachers canset goals for reading words, sentences, or paragraphs,and then students take the role of setting their owngoals. But many students do not quite know whetherthey achieved a goal, such as understanding a paragraph,or not. Accurate feedback from the teacher is crucial.The feedback should be specific to the students' taskachievement rather than a general "good job." A teachermight say, "Wow! You put yourself in the character'ssituation and figured out how he may feel," which ismore effective than simply saying "nice reading."As students learn to set goals and recognize theirachievements, their resilience expands. They bounceback from failure. They sustain their concentrationfor longer times. Becoming actively persistent is theessence of becoming dedicated in reading. However,this persistence cannot come from a void. It is groundedin the belief that reading is important.

Assuring relevanceStudents do not become dedicated to reading unless itis important to them. Obviously it is not the soundingout of words or the piecing together of paragraphsthat creates relevance. It is the content and substanceof books that they must value to grow in dedication.Students' first reason for being a dedicated reader is thatthe texts are relevant to them.

In one survey, teachers found that AfricanAmerican students overwhelmingly selected literarytexts in which they could connect to the characters.For example, one student stated that he liked the book

Gettin' Through Thursday by Cooper because "They gothrough almost the same thing we go through. That'swhy I chose this story instead of the other one. It's agood book to me because they had to pretend they werehaving a party because the mom didn't have any money"(Gray, 2009, p. 477). It was not the genre nor havingAfrican American characters in the book nor having aparticular theme that mattered. It was connecting to thecharacter that was the most important criterion used bystudents to select books.

Making reading relevant for your students can bea challenging task. As Cheryl Nuhfer, a middle schoolteacher, said:

It's hard to take a child whose parent has been afarmer all his life and that's what they are goingto do. Why do they have to know Shakespeare?Why do they have to know Chaucer? Why dothey have to know literature? There isn't a realstrong connection there. They have to know howto read a bill of sale and more functional typesof reading. I think there is a disconnect between'the curriculum with the classics' and the needto know.

As this teacher continued, "The irrelevance isprobably the biggest factor in students' avoidance ofreading."

One poignant way to make books relevant in theclassroom is through videos. For example, a brief videoof 2 to 10 minutes can set the historical scene for a novelset at the turn of the 19th century in Europe. If thetopic of global warming is the subject of an informationtext that students will be reading, a brief video oficebergs melting in the Arctic or glaciers disappearingfrom high mountains will galvanize students' attention.As a resource for relevance. The Discovery Channel hasmore than 50,000 1 to 30 minute videos that can beviewed in any classroom in which the district has an"inexpensive" subscription. When students observe avideo, they have had a vivid, personal encounter whichthey can take to text, bringing the print to life. Whenstudents candidly say that the text connects to them,they recognize the benefit of literacy and value its rolein their lives.

Fostering awarenessFor many students, the benefits of reading to theirreading today or in the future are simply not obvious. Asone teacher said, "It's difficult for a middle school childto think too much past Friday's next dance." However,teachers can help students create an awareness of thecontribution of reading to their lives through a rangeof activities. In middle school, students are seekingfreedom and are keen to read about people's experiencesof freedom. In secondary school, students can explore

The NERA Journal (2010), Volume 46{l) Feature Articles I 25

freedom by reading a book such as The Breadwinner byDeborah Ellis about Parvana, a 12-year old girl livingin Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The novel depictsParvana when she poses as a boy in order to earn moneyfor her family by serving as a reader to illiterate soldiersin the local marketplace. She enjoys a measure offreedom by making her femininity invisible. Throughopen discussion of multiple perspectives on such anovel, students gain insights not only to their personaldynamics, but to the roles of reading in expanding theirhorizons (Bean 6c Harper, 2006).

When some students encounter information text inelementary school they quickly awaken to the benefitsof reading. In classroom surveys in an elementaryschool in a low income neighborhood, students whoread information books were primarily motivated by theknowledge gained from reading. As kids said:

• "I like dolphins. I think they are cool becausethey live in the ocean and I like oceans."

• "It was important because I like differentcultures."

• "I liked it because it was about an Indian and Iam interested in Indians."

In choosing expository text with guidance fromteachers, students came to the realization that they wereable to pick up cool information about their favoritetopics (Edmunds, 2006). Although it was not measuredin this survey, it was highly likely that such an activitywill spur students to realize that reading and booksare valuable to them, which will fuel their longer-termdedication to reading.

Teachers have used a range of simple activities tofoster awareness of reading's benefits. For example, oneteacher provided a simple t-chart with observations ina column on the left and inferences in a column on theright. As students read a narrative or an informationbook, they mark observations (which are literalmeanings from the book) in the left-hand side underthe observation column. On the right-hand side, underthe inference column, students write information fromtheir own knowledge and experience that enables themto connect parts of the texts to each other, or portionsof the passages to their background experiences. As thestudents draw the observation-inference chart, they caneasily be led to the realization that the book is bringinginformation to them and they are bringing informationto the text. With the twin recognitions that they are anactive learner and the book is an agent of knowledgegrowth, children see reading as important and valuethe literacy experience (Nokes, 2008). In these concretesituations, a particular book has helped a student on aspecific day with a concrete task of mind expansion.

As students grow in awareness of how readingconnects to them, their valuing of reading expands inbreadth and depth. With awareness-expanding discus-

sions with the teacher, students can expand their recog-nition that reading impacts their school success, theirprospects for further education, their career potentials,and their prospects in the world of gainful employment.Such awareness gives a rationale for their persistence inreading challenging texts for long periods of time. It en-ables them to sustain their energy in reading when theirinterest is not stimulated. Although reading for inter-est is desirable and enjoyable, it is not always possible.The complementary motivation of being dedicated canbridge the individual into achievement when the luxuryof interesting text is not within reach. Thus, dedicationwhich merges persistence and planning with the valuesystem of the reader is an enduring motivation that canbe fostered daily in classrooms from K to 12.

Fostering students' dedication cannot be accom-plished only by encouraging effort. A lot of effort doingthe wrong thing will not improve students' achieve-ment. Expert teachers also enable students to becomeaware of how they work as learners. Teachers have tohelp students work smart as well as work hard. CarolSanta, a remarkable teacher and past president of theInternational Reading Association reports from herschool for unmotivated students saying:

We help our students understand what activeengagement and learning effort look and feellike. We might say, 'Read this page, then stopand respond in your journal.' During a lecturewe stop and ask students to summarize whatthey have heard to a partner. They read andrespond by drawing, making a concept map,taking notes, or asking questions. Throughoutthis activity we engage students in conversations:'How are you going to persist actively in learningthis information? What active strategies did youuse to grapple with meaning? Why does learningtake work?' (Santa, 2006, p.472).

Santa expects students to combine planning withtheir persistence to be effective. As she continues:

Teachers who help students to work smart helpthem learn active strategies. When students relytoo much on strategies, students may get turnedoff and disengaged from reading. But if studentsdo not learn reading strategies, they lack the toolsto read effectively and their persistence cannot beas valuable to them (Santa, 2006).

Massey and Heafner (2004) recommend wellknown tools for reading as follows: To persist effec-tively, students should use these strategies: (1) establishpurpose for reading, (2) make connections to back-ground knowledge, (3) understand the arrangement oftexts, (4) make connections between texts, (5) monitor

26 I Feature Articles

comprehension through questioning, and (6) synthesizeinformation across texts. With these tools, students willread for understanding and their effort at comprehen-sion will pay off for them.

Too many teachers think of motivation forreading and strategies for reading as opposites. Eitherwe are teaching hard, academic strategies or we arehaving a motivational day. Students benefit most whenmotivations and strategies are fused together. If studentsbecome excited about a book or a topic, they needstrategies for learning from the hook or enjoying it fully.Conversely, if students have a few effective strategiesthey will never use them if they are bored, avoidant, orotherwise unmotivated for reading. Therefore, teachingstudents to he dedicated readers requires helping themto work smart as they put forth high effort.

Affording choicesMore popular than any motivational support isaffording choices, which is widely supported in theprofessional literature (O'Brien ôc Dillon, 2008).However, misconceptions abound. For example, manyteachers provide "sustained silent reading" time to givestudents a chance at self-selection. Yet, this techniqueis often misunderstood as the only way to give choice.Myriad little choices can be given during any lesson,which enable students to express small preferences thatspur their reading. In a middle school classroom, oneof us asked a small group of struggling readers, "Whatchoices did your teacher give you today?" Studentsreplied:

• "We could read with a partner or not."• "We could take notes or not."• "We got to choose which color card to write

our question on."• "We could choose the word we thought was

the key word in the paragraph."

Then we asked the $64 million dollar question:"How did having a choice help you read?" Studentserupted with sublime self-reflections, such as:

• "Having a choice whether to partner read mademe feel better."

• "I could read alone, which helps me concen-trate."

• "I could read hy myself, which is faster forme.

• "I liked flnding my own key word on thepage."

Remarkahly, these struggling readers were awareof how choice helped them think during reading. Thesemini-choices lent students a bit more investment intothe hard work of learning to write good summaries.The total time for the choices was 2 minutes out ofa 45-minute period, which was not excessive. Content

of the lesson was not compromised. Teacher planningtime was minimal. In other words, the benefits werepalpable in the classroom. The costs were minimalto the teacher. Our nagging quandary is this: Whydon't more teachers make more use of mini-choices inteaching reading?

Arranging social goalsJust as a student will work hard to maintain a goodrelationship with a teacher, students seek to win therespect of their friends and classmates. In this light,students will he dedicated to their reading when readinghas a role in their social interactions with classmates.One way to set up social goals among students is tocreate a project that will call for a student's organizationand persistence in reading. For example, one of theteachers we interviewed told us that she "will try tohuddy them up so they will share the novels they arereading in a literature circle sort ofthing, or even a hooksharing recommendation." For example, in CORI,students work cooperatively to huild a group poster.The group selects a theme related to survival in nature,such as mutualism or prédation. Each student readsand writes to create a contrihution to the poster. Theyorganize their work, create a timeline, and share theirwork with each other building toward the culminatingpoint of explaining their poster to another team or tothe class. This gives each student a social frameworkin which their dedication to reading will bring positivesocial interactions with their teammate.

When students see that teachers are supportingtheir active collaboration, they become more cooperativeand dedicate themselves to reading more conscientiouslythan if they are continually required to toil in isolation.Many partnerships, team efforts, group projects,and peer cooperatives have been shown to motivatestudents, and some have been shown to increase readingcomprehension directly (Murphy, Wilkenson, Soter,Hennessey, ôc Alexander, 2009).

Professional developmentTeaching to the second side of reading, the will to read,like teaching to the first side, is a matter of teacherexpertise. There is no formula or off-the-shelf programfor motivating students. The good news is that teacherscan rapidly learn to he more effective at encouragingengagement. With a short amount of professionaldevelopment, teachers can learn to give choices thatlend students a sense of empowerment (Reeve, 1996). Ina slightly longer, but realistic amount of time, teacherscan gain a grip on implementing all the CORI teachingpractices for elementary school mentioned here. Forsecondary level, a book and guide for self-reflectionabout engagement is available (Guthrie, 2008). Ourmessage for teachers and administrators is that amanageable amount of reading, thinking, and sharing

The NERA Journal (2010), Volume 46{1) Feature Articles I 27

among teachers, followed by trial in the classroom, willcultivate the culture of engagement in classrooms andschools.

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