INCORPORATE EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES TO MOTIVATE

READING AND HELP STUDENTS READ EFFICIENTLY

By Yixin ZHI

The topic of the project is about how to apply effective strategies to engage students into reading and furthermore help students reading effectively and meaningfully. It aims at to have students would love to read, enjoy reading, students can read at an proper speed with accurate comprehension about the text. So this project involves with effective reading instructions, strategies for reading fluency and comprehension, motivations, scaffold students to use these strategies in reading and my own classroom practices.

Articulation of My Question

Reading is not only an important subject at school, it is also an important lifelong skill and habit. Some students read at school out of they have to read instead of they want to read, or they read what assigned to read instead of initially to read. There are also circumstances that students would like to read, but fluency and comprehension become obstacles of reading process. Therefore, to make reading activities meaningful and effective to students, it is crucial to engage and motivate students with effective strategies and help them overcome reading obstacles.

Why I Choose This Topic?

Teachers provide a variety of reading materials

(Allingtons, 2002, P. 743) Teachers provide a variety of methods to teach

reading (Blair, Rupley and Nichlos, 2007, P. 433) Teachers provide explicit and direct reading

instructions (McKenna& Stahl, 2009, P. 174 ) Teachers provide enough time to do reading and

writing everyday (Allingtions, 2002, P 743) Teachers provide differentiate reading selections

and instructions (Allingtions, 2002, P 744)

Effective Strategies I Have Learned

Teachers employ small group, inquiry- based

discussion (Harvey & Daniels, 2009) Think- Alouds Reciprocal Questioning & Teaching Summary writing Graphic Organizer Reading Guides Teachers encourage students generate

questions (McKenna& Stahl, 2009, P. 175 )

Monitor Comprehension Activate and Connection to Background

Knowledge Ask Questions Infer and Visualize Meaning (Harvey & Daniels,

2009, P.22-24) Select text purposefully to support

comprehension development (Shanahan et al, 2010, P. 31)

Teachers offer motivating texts and student- centered reading activities (Duke et al., 2011, P.83)

Repeated reading to increase students’

fluency Teachers design buddy reading and paired

reading activities (McKenna& Stahl, 2009) Demonstration and discussion of the what,

how, when and why of the activity (Rasinski& Samuels, 2001 P. 100-101)

Teachers not only learn from students’ right answers, also learn from students wrong ones (By Balaban)

Motivation is multi-faced (reading materials,

self- selection, self- efficiency, self- confidence, gender difference, backgrounds )

Cognition + Motivation = Engagement Engage students rather than motivate

students Cultivate students intrinsic motivation Reward students that are relate to what

should reinforced Make students feel they can accomplish the

task

Motivation

Due to English and Chinese are different language systems and my students’ Chinese language capacities, some of strategies I appreciate but not fit for my students. Strategies listed below are what I have applied to my students:

What Strategies Work With My Students

Small group, inquiry- based discussion Differentiate methods to Teach reading Provide explicit and direct reading

instructions Provide enough time to do reading and

writing everyday Provide differentiate reading selections and

instructions Graphic Organizer Think- Alouds

Encourage students generate questions Monitor Comprehension Activate and Connection to Background

Knowledge Select text purposefully to support

comprehension Offer motivating texts and student- centered

reading activities Offer repeated reading, buddy reading and

paired reading

Learn from students’ wrong answers Engage students with intrinsic motivation and

reward students by related reading activities

Practices In My

Classroom

This is ourReading Corner!

I offer students a variety of reading

materials, they can choose what they like.

Some of these books are read for enrich their culture and literacy

knowledge, some are matching with their current language level.

Select motivating texts to

engage students

Students like the Mandy and Pandy series most , no matter boy or girl. Each book has a different theme: color, animals, sports… The pictures are vivid, the words and sentences are super matching with their current language skills and our curriculum. Students love to read them. The contents also help students comprehend vocabularies and sentence patterns.

To make sure students know what to do and not get lost in Chinese reading, my reading instructions are specific and clear. I scaffold them step by step. My students spend time in reading everyday: books, sentences, phrases. Or at least I make sure students are exposed to Chinese characters in every day’s class.

Explicit reading instruction and differentiate reading instruction

Considering about students’ different learning styles and learning abilities, I applied various reading instructions to engage students. It includes small group work, reading buddy, reading helper, visual hints, graphic organizer, videos, songs, worksheets, wonder wall… These synthetically work together to help students’ reading fluency and comprehension.

In this activity, I group students by their reading abilities. I put students with same reading ability in one group. They may either read a book to each other or share read their projects to each other.

Reading Buddy

In reading buddy group, students utilize those materials (show in last slide) read to each other. Project based work help students’ comprehension; repeated reading in groups help students’ fluency. Students also love project and use their own works!

This activity is similar to reading buddy, but I group students by arranging one advanced student with several relative slow learners. They use almost the same materials as reading buddy, but in reading helper group, advanced students help slow learners improve their reading.

Reading helper

In small learning group, students talk and share their terrific ideas about how they comprehend and memorize Chinese characters. They also talk about their comprehension toward a story or video. They generate questions about the meaning of Chinese characters and why different characters put together the meaning have totally changed. For example, they discussed 马 is horse and 虎 is tiger ， why 马马虎虎 means careless?After discussion, students contribute their achievements to the whole class.

Small group discussion

This is our Character Wall, students talk about characters like this by different themes.

Interview

The pictures in last two slides are interview paper. It includes question sentence and answer sentence. Students walk around the classroom, read sentences and interview their friends. Then record the information on their paper. It is a good activity to help students increase fluency.

Visual hints

The two reading posters in last slide contains several pictures, which give students clues about what are those characters mean. The visual inputs help students make connection to characters and comprehend the sentence.

Chinese characters are pictographic symbols. It originated from real subject. Sometimes I teach my brand new learners simple and vivid characters that they feel easy to read, write and comprehend. Please view the video to see the development of Chinese characters ：http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pF9xnGWYSchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhAlN5HXL4Qhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcSTGJR-bc8&feature=related

Select text purposefully to support comprehension

Song

We also learn reading with songs

I employ different kinds of graphic organizers to introduce different topic vocabularies and phrases. It adds lots of fun to reading and learning in class. It helps students organize their notes, practice writing, reading and comprehend words and phrases.

Graphic Organizer

Film Graphic Organizer for school activities

Ice Cream Graphic Organizer for part of food vocabularies

Harvey, S., & Daniels, H. (2009). Comprehension and

collaboration: Inquiry circles in action. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

McKenna, M. C., & Stahl, K. A. (2009). Assessment for reading instruction, second edition. New York: Guilford Press.

Allington, R. L. (2002). What I have learned about effective reading instruction from a decade of studying exemplary classroom teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 83, 740-747

Blair, T.R., Rupley, W.H., & Nichols, W.D. (2007). The effective teacher of reading: Considering the “what” and “how” of instruction. The Reading Teacher, 60, 432-438. 

Reference:

Duke, N. K., Pearson, P. D., Strachan, S., & Billman,

A. K. (2011). Essential elements of fostering and teaching reading comprehension. In A. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (Eds), What research has to say about reading instruction (4th ed., pp. 51-93). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. 

Shanahan, T., Callison, K., Carriere, C., Duke, N. K., Pearson, P. D., Schatschneider, C., & Torgesen, J. (2010). Improving reading comprehension in kindergarten through 3rd grade: A practice guide (NCEE 2010-4038). Read pp. 3 – 39