Motivation and Learning

I know, I know, I've written several times about motivation and learning. But having spent most of my teaching with remedial students, I've seen first-hand how motivation impacts a child's ability to learn and improve. Professor Sue Gambrell in Reading Rockets writes a strong article that states just this. To give her key points (and I'm copying straight from the article here), she advocates the following:

..Students' self-concepts and the value they place on reading are critical to their success 

..Choice is widely acknowledged as a method for enhancing motivation.

..Read-aloud and discussion are effective ways to engage in mastery modeling. 

..Providing balanced book collections at all grade levels is vital to engagement. 

..Many schools, teachers and parent organizations use rewards in their reading programs (and it doesn't harm the child -- if given correctly).

But you knew these already, right?

Books For Advanced Readers

Nurturing strong readers is critical. Many, so many advanced students thrive on good books that challenge their intellect and curiosity -- some immerse themselves into one genre while others thrive on the wide range. So parents, here's a list of books Hoagies' Gifted Page pulled together for your child. Hopefully, you and your child can use this as one of your guides as you navigate the reading world.

A Good Explanation of Dyslexia

Are you worried that your child suffers from dyslexia? Reading Rockets offers a good, detailed description that may help. The article is long but is organized in such a way that you can pick out pertinent paragraphs that interest you. It begins with the basics: boys and girls are equally identified with dyslexia, reversals of letters is very common and not a sign of dyslexia, etc. But it quickly moves into the neurological basis of the learning difficulty.

Interviews With 100 Children's Writers

Seeing an author up close and personal can be quite thrilling for a child (and you!), but here's a link to online interviews with over 100 children's authors. Do you or your child recognize any of these names? Any new people you want to hear about? Enjoy, and a hearty thanks to Reading Rockets.

Having Fun With Vocabulary With Your Child

I have had a vocabulary incentive in my room for years, and it's amazing how motivated the students are to use it. It has various ins and outs, but basically, if my students see one of our vocabulary words in print -- or they can get their parents or teacher to slip in some of the words into their conversation and the student identifies it -- they earn points from me. What is so interesting is that every time I do this activity, the students are very eager to find the words, to have their points recorded, yet never ask me what they will "earn" for those points. For example, this year some students have already earned 50 points, yet no one has asked me what they will receive as their prize. Not one. We all just enjoy using and playing with the words, that's all. I just read an article about a high school teacher who gives students stickers on a chart each time they use a vocabulary word in their writing. Stickers -- for high schoolers? Parents, that's all it takes -- some fun, some challenge -- and our children are eager to learn.

Assessing Students' Oral Responses

I caught an interesting article on Education Week Teacher, a teacher wondering if and how teachers can assess oral contributions made by her students. Her musings began as she wondered why her own daughter who apparently offered strong insight into classroom discussions did not earn points for doing so. Is there a way to form a rubric for such students?

When my son participated in Odyssey of the Mind, one activity was for students to sit around in a circle, passing around an object. When the object reached each student, she was to verbally turn the object into something else. A shoe, as it landed into different hands, became a boat, a hat, cockpit, a corset. If the student made her object somehow tie to the object just before hers, she received an extra point. A boat became a paddle, a corset became a straight jacket.

Discussions in class could have a similar, yet dissimilar, rubric. Just as some rubrics for essays reward points when the writer hits upon certain, key, topics covered in class, general discussion rubrics could award points for tying in key topic in class, connecting to the speaker just before her, even the use of complex sentences.

It would take some doing. But in a world where the spoken word is just as valuable as the written word -- and, in some cases, far more valuable -- such a rubric seems to have found its time.

     Here is an informative article on how to motivate students to write. However, I've found the best way a teacher can engage students in writing is -- is to be a writer himself. When I show my students some of my work, when I then ask them to create their own and we will work on it together to polish their work -- I find the most motivated students.
     Teachers who are writers also far better understand exactly what they are teaching. How often I've heard students come to me from their regular classrooms, giving me the classic definition of "metaphor." Their own teachers did their best, I'm sure, when they armed their students with a definition to explain this wonderful writing tool. But did they tell their students how metaphors liven up writing, how they allows the reader to see an image in the environment they themselves live in, how the ordinary sentence become extraordinary in the hands of a metaphor? A writer would tell students this -- and more.