Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Article Summary and Analysis 6



Article Title: Motivating and engaging students in reading
Author: Cambria, J. and Guthrie, J.T.
Journal: The NERA Journal 46 (1), 2010, pgs. 16-29.
Summary
              This article aims to define and categorize motivation and offer suggestions to teachers on how to motivate their students.  This article, which is written more for the teaching community as opposed to the scholarly community, breaks down motivation into three categories: interest, dedication, and confidence.  “An interested student reads because he enjoys it; a dedicated student reads because he believes it is important, and a confident student reads because he can do it” (Cambria & Guthrie, 2010).  The article goes into the most detail on dedication by breaking it down into the subcategories of persistence, value, and planning; the researchers also differentiate between dedication and intrinsic motivation, and show how dedication affects reading achievement.
              The article then delves into teaching practices that will increase reading motivation in both elementary and secondary classrooms.  The six practices for secondary classrooms are creating relationships, building success, assuring relevance, fostering awareness, affording choices, and arranging social goals.
Analysis
              In my previous blog post, I mentioned how the author, Wigfield, is one of the big names in reading motivation research.  This article is co-written by another of the big names – Guthrie.  However, instead of detailing a research process, this article speaks directly to teachers and gives practical advice on how to recognize motivation and how to foster it in the classroom.  The three breakdowns of motivation here are simplifications of the more detailed breakdowns as listed my previous blog post and that I have seen referenced in other articles.  A lot of good information is provided here for the literature review and background areas of my research paper.
              As for the teaching practices targeting reading motivation, I aim to incorporate three of them into my sustained silent reading program.  The three I will include are fostering awareness, affording choices, and arranging social goals.  The article’s section on affording choices is enlightening because it defines choice as more than just a free choice of book.  Choice also revolves around reading with a partner, taking notes or not, and asking questions or not.

References
Cambria, J. and Guthrie, J.T. (2010).  Motivating and engaging students in reading.  The NERA Journal 46 (1), 16-29.  Retrieved from http://literacyconnects.org/img/2013/03/Motivating-and-engaging-students-in-reading-Cambria-Guthrie.pdf

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