Motivating Students To Read

Undoubtedly, students who have interests are engaged, and engaged thinkers and readers are better students (Guthrie&Humenick, 2004). It is important to be aware of motivating students to be active readers as well as to find the right ways to do so. The belief is that if students find the texts they are required to read unappealing or too difficult and the teaching practices around these texts fail to engage , then they may avoid reading about important topics in the content areas. In their article "Motivating Students to Read in the Content Classroom:Six Evidence -Based Principles", Brozo, W.G. & Sutton Flynt, E. (2008) suggest that these principles are guides to instructional practices in the content areas that are both motivating and engaging.
The first principle is elevating self - efficacy. This refers to the belief and confidence that students have about their capacity to accomplish meaningful tasks and produce a desired result in an academic setting. It is a fact that engaged students whether economically privileged or not can outperform their less- engaged peers.
Another principle focuses on engendering interest in new learning. An important factor in building self - efficacy is to generate interest in new content. Students are more encouraged to read and learn if the material and the learning activities interest them. Therefore, teachers need to incorporate a multiplicity of strategies and instructional practices that embrace various forms of literacy, information, and student choice related to what they are learning.
The authors suggest that students need to connect outside with their inside school literacies. This third principle posits that interesting texts in the content areas may be those that students recognise and create from their everyday worlds.Students will be motivated to read and learn in the content area classroom when they are helped to find and make connections between their everyday , multiliteracy practices and their lesson plans.
The fourth principle put forth by the writers deals with making an abundance of interesting texts available to students. The undisputed view is that introducing texts to students from their everyday worlds and a wide range of genres in content lessons will definitely encourage students to read in the content area classroom.
Students need to be entrusted with a sense of agency and autonomy in expanding their choices and options. Turner (1995) suggests that "Choice may be one of the most critical elements of motivation." As such allowing students more input into the texts they read , the response options they use to demonstrate content acquisition, and even the kind of learning experiences they participate in will serve to motivate them
The principle of structuring collaboration for motivation refers to critical social networks that support students' literacy and content learning. There must be effective collaboration between teacher and student in which teachers are seen as allies in the reading and learning process.Teachers need to create opportunities for students to work in the pursuit of new knowledge. As a result students will become more instrinsically motivated and will definitely experience a sense of belonging.
The above mentioned principles will definitely make learning more interesting and worthwhile.