Motivating Reluctant Readers

Hey Yvonne,

We've all had difficutly motivating students in general. Our school has a committe designated for motivating students in reading, language, math, and conduct. It is a difficult task to motivate every student in your class to read. I have several strategies that I use in my classroom, but I am still in the process of trying and learning new strategies. I don't use the same ones every year because my students change. What worked before may not work with my new students. The most important and first thing you should do is get to know your students and their interests. I have my students fill out a questionare of their favorite book types and general getting to know you activities. I learn so much about them from day one. Expose your students to different types of literature at every opportunity. Examples are comics, newspapers, and magazines. Majority of students enjoy humorous literature. I love to use interactive strategies to ensure my students are motivated. These include Readers Theater, DRAW, and Story Telling. Readers Theater's focus is on repeated readings that improve fluency, comprehension, and motivation. Students socially interact which gives them an opportunity to share with their peers. Reluctant readers are given a part that they must read over and over again to get their parts right. In Story Telling, students identify with a character which in turn brings them into the plot of the story. Students can create a summary of a part of the stroy to share with their classmates. They give their peers a sequence of events, a climax, and a resolution to the story. The DRAW (Draw, Read, Attend, and Write) strategy gives reluctant readers to work in small groups when given a short article, story or content area chapters to read. Before students split into small groups, I prepare questions that are either literal or inferential. The groups then draw one question and read the article or chapter they have been assigned. The students are responsible for answering the question they have chosen and then reporting the answer back tot he whole group. The class must discuss and all students are expected to participate and listen. The final part of this strategy is for students to write the answers to all of the questions. I use this for a classwork grade. Anytime you would like to see one of these strategies used in my classroom, let me know. I hope this helped answer your question. Let me know if you need anything else.
Karen Richards