AVReading Newsletter September: Reading Motivation
In their book Inspiring Reading Success (2008), Fink and Samuels state that within the field of reading and literacy, a tremendous amount of energy has been dedicated to the how of reading. In other words, we focus on the mechanics of reading-- word strategies, fluency, expression – but we often do this at the expense of the why . In fact, motivation has proven to be a tremendously important indicator of how well a student does in school (Hulme 2015) . For one reason, motivation and self regulation seem to be closely related. Students who are willing to make an investment in their academic activities exert more energy to monitor and correct their own learning plans. Additionally, they are able to sustain setbacks and difficulties without becoming defeated and disengaged. According to Alderman (2008) the positive effects of motivation have been documented in...