Increase Achievement through Motivation

"Engagement is more important to reading than intelligence."  This is a quote from Dr. John Guthrie on the Voice of Literacy podcast from January 27, 2013 titled "How motivation, engagement, and reading achievement are related among adolescents." 

So, as teachers, what can we do to help support our students?  Dr. Guthrie offers 5 points that are critical to students' motivation to read.  He says if they are motivated, they will read more.  Having students read more is our goal since the more they read, the better their opportunities for reading achievement.  His points of motivation are as follows

1. Relevance - Make reading relevant to students and they will be motivated to read.   An example would be to watch a video or conduct a hands-on activity and follow it up with reading a text on the topic to learn more. 
2. Choices - Give the students one choice every day, even if it is a little choice.  They may choose which book, or which chapter in a book, to read.  Another choice might be which character to analyze or which event to read about.  The main point is that with their choice, the students gain a sense of ownership in their reading.
3. Collaboration - Let students see that reading can be both social and independent.  Allowing just 2-5 minutes of reading with a partner each lesson will help motivate students to read.
4. Confidence - Build students' confidence by having them set achievable goals for themselves, whether it is a certain number of pages to read, or a certain number of questions they are working to answer.  And, be sure to match the student with an appropriate text. 
5. Value - Help students see the value of reading, make it pay off for them.  Have an activity that if they read something first, they will perform better, such as a debate. 

 If you sit and think about it, these points are almost intuitive.  How motivated would you be to read a text that was handed to you by someone else, that you had no choice in, is not relevant to anything you are doing or interested in, that is written in a manner that is beyond your understanding, you see no benefit from, and are forced to suffer through alone?  If, as teachers, we can satisfy at least one of Dr. Guthrie's points with every reading our students are assigned, then we can increase their motivation to read and through it increase their reading achievement.