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How Can Teachers

Motivate

by Dr. MAggie LehMAn

abstract
motivating students to read is an important aspect of 
being an elementary reading teacher. five second 
graders and their teacher were involved in the original 
work that this article is based on. Through classroom 
observations and one-on-one interviews, this research 

showed the importance of motivating reluctant readers. 
This article focuses on one student (ben) in particular 
and his struggles with reading motivation. Through 
this lens of motivating reluctant readers, this article 
proceeds to share ideas of how classroom teachers 
can motivate reluctant readers in the classroom setting. 
Teachers can do a variety of things to motivate their 
students to read. One of the first things teachers need 
to do is get to know their students. Teachers also need 
to utilize a variety of motivating reading experiences to 
help motivate students as well as create an engaging 
and open literacy environment. A final way teachers 
can motivate their students to read is to implement 
motivating and relevant classroom activities. utilizing 
these ideas to motivate readers will hopefully work to 
create lifelong learners.

it is reading center time in Miss Beckham’s second 
grade classroom and her second grade students 

move from center to center at the sound of the timer. on 
this particular april morning, students are engrossed 
in activities revolving around their current author study 
of the nonfiction children’s author Steve Jenks. Since 
Miss Beckham loves Steve Jenks’ books, she has 
created an environment full of enthusiasm about this 
author study for a couple of months, which, in turn, 
created a very motivational environment. The twenty-
seven students in this classroom eagerly read these 
books in various formats from partner reading to read-
aloud to a small group scavenger hunt for information 
from a particular book. during this time, the students 
identified as struggling and requiring extra assistance 
in the form of small group reading instruction with 
the Title I teacher were even able to decode difficult 
words. for instance, Scully was so motivated to read 
these books that he was easily able to read the word 
‘threatened’ without any outside assistance while 
reading one of these highly engaging books.

On a similar morning about five weeks later, the 
students are participating in the four daily centers. 
They read a story from the reading book, listen to a 
chapter book read by a parent volunteer, participate 
in a word work station that is largely based on the 
weekly spelling words, and choose between taking 
accelerated reader (ar) quizzes and reading a 
book of choice. on this particular morning, ben is 
displaying his lack of motivation by making choices to 
avoid reading. at the ar/free read station, he sits at 
the computer and seemingly pretends to take an ar 
quiz for more than 15 minutes instead of reading a 
book of his choice. about an hour later ben makes a 
similar choice after completing a word game paper at 
the word work center. He chooses to talk to his friends 
rather than the expected scenario of reading a book. 
This situation occurred after he was lectured by his 
classroom teacher about the importance of reading 

Reluctant 
Readers?



GeorGia Journal of readinG 33 Volume 38, number 1   2015

during the appropriate time of the day rather than 
talking to others and wandering the classroom.

These two scenarios point to the importance of 
the literacy environment, and student attitude and 
motivation to read in the reading classroom. A student’s 
attitude toward reading as well as motivation to read 
often decide whether he/she chooses to read or do 
other activities instead, even if the child is a fluent 
reader (lazarus & Callahan, 2000; mcKenna, Kear, & 
ellsworth, 1995). reading attitude and motivation are 
also essential to the development and use of lifelong 
reading skills (lazarus, & Callahan, 2000). reading 
attitude and motivation may also impact a child’s 
eventual ability due to motivation, engagement and 
practice factors (mcKenna, Kear, & ellsworth, 1995).
 
what does the research say?
Motivation theory and Motivation
motivation theory works to explain why some readers 
are more likely to choose to read than others. Winnie 
and marx (1989) explain how motivation theories 
account for three aspects of behavior. The first involves 
what a student chooses to do in a certain interaction 
or situation, such as choosing to raise his/her hand 
or avoiding eye contact during a class discussion. 
The next aspect of behavior is the “temperament of 
a person’s behavior” (p. 224), such as being able to 
ignore distractions and the care taken in completing 
assignments. The final aspect of behavior mentioned 
by Winnie and marx is persistence. This concept is 
related to the time allowed to complete a task versus 
the amount of time spent completing it. for instance, 
some students may spend a lot of time creating a word 
web or concept map while others spend as little time as 
possible. Since motivation is such an important aspect 
of engaged, successful reading, these behavioral 
concepts need to be taken into consideration.

Consistent with the above explanation, Guthrie and 
Wigfield (2000) suggest that “reading motivation is 
the individual’s personal goals, values, and beliefs 
with regard to the topics, processes, and outcomes 
of reading” (p. 405). Guthrie and Wigfield explain 
some key motivations for reading, including having 
learning or performance goals, intrinsic and extrinsic 
motivation, self-efficacy, and social motivations. 
learning or performance goals include the reasons 
why a person chooses to read, such as the desire 
to learn more about a particular topic or wanting to 
outperform others. intrinsic and extrinsic motivations 
are key to the desire to read. intrinsic motivation is an 
inward need to read for the sake of reading or learning 
more about a topic. extrinsic motivation is the desire 
to read in order to receive an external reward, such as 
recognition or a trinket of some kind. Students with a 
high self-efficacy towards reading “see difficult reading 

tasks as challenging and work diligently to master 
them, using their cognitive strategies productively” 
(Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, p. 408). Poor self-efficacy 
towards reading results in a lack of motivation to 
read. This is especially present in students who may 
have struggled in learning how to read and still think 
of themselves as poor readers even though they are 
reading on a much higher level and seem to enjoy 
reading some books. Social motivations for reading 
make children want to read in order to interact with 
their peers about the book. all of these motivational 
constructs help to explain why some readers are more 
motivated to read than others.

Guthrie and Wigfield (2000) also point out that attitude 
is different from motivation. attitude refers to whether 
or not a student likes to perform a particular task, such 
as reading for recreational reasons and reading for 
academic reasons. Motivation involves the reader’s 
goals and desires to read. a highly motivated reader 
will choose to read at any given time.
 
A student’s motivation to read and self-efficacy towards 
reading are enhanced when they are given the tools 
to complete the task successfully (Guthrie et al., 2004; 
Lutz, Guthrie, & Davis, 2006). Strategy instruction, 
such as teaching students comprehension strategies, 
helps students gain confidence in their ability to read 
and comprehend the text. for example, teaching 
students to ask questions while reading encourages 
students to stop once in a while to check and make 
sure that they are understanding what they have read, 
which gives them more confidence in what they are 
doing and learning.

Guthrie et al. (2004) shared some important aspects 
of classrooms that supported intrinsic motivation to 
read, including “a) content goals for instruction, b) 
choice and autonomy support, c) interesting texts, and 
d) collaboration for learning” (p. 404). These relatively 
simple classroom practices have a great impact on 
students’ motivation to read and to continue reading. 
Cole (2012), shared some similar classroom practices 
that aid in the development of students’ intrinsic 
motivation mechanisms:
n Teacher modeling interest
n Sincere praise
n Collaborative learning
n Student success
n Teacher caring
n Using students’ interests
n Giving choices
n decreasing rewards
n meaningful work
n allowing autonomy
n appropriate challenge
n informative, not judgmental, feedback (p. 71)



GeorGia Journal of readinG 34 Volume 38, number 1   2015

by utilizing these mechanisms, teachers are able 
to motivate students to want to read and hopefully 
become lifelong readers.

Perhaps one of the most striking things to note about 
motivation theory is the fact that this essential part of 
the reading process was not included as one of the 
pillars detailed by the national reading Panel (2000). 
motivation is what drives students to read for pleasure 
and enjoyment and basically become a lifelong reader, 
but it was not noteworthy enough to be considered by 
the panel as part of these essential aspects of good 
reading instruction.

literacy Environment
according to Cambourne (2000), a literacy environment 
is a complicated concept, which primarily includes 
the aspects of the physical set-up of the classroom, 
the human behaviors, and the programs available in 
the classroom setting. These aspects work together 
to create an engaging environment that promotes 
positive attitudes toward reading as well as a desire or 
motivation to read.

The principal aspect of the physical environment 
is that it should be motivationally print-rich in both 
the relevance of the print adorning the walls as well 
as the materials provided to the children. This print 
should have a function within the classroom setting 
rather than simply serving as decorations. This print 
can include materials that guide daily activities, such 
as directions for completing the morning routine, and 
teacher-made charts, such as a list of ideas for how to 
start a new writing project. another important idea for 
a good literacy environment is to provide children with 
plenty of literature from a variety of genres, including 
fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, and traditional literature, 
and types, including picture books, chapter books, 
graphic novels, and magazines on a range of ability 
levels. This variety of literature is an essential part of 
the literacy environment (allington & Johnston, 2002; 
Cambourne, 2000; morrow, Tracey & del noro, 201l) 
and encourages the intrinsic motivation discussed 
above, including providing books related to students’ 
interests and allowing students the opportunity to 
choose their own books to read. The environment 
should also include areas for large group reading, such 
as a large rug, where the teacher and students could 
meet as a class for instruction and large-group read-
aloud. This area is an essential part of a motivating 
classroom. during the large group time, the teacher 
is able to promote motivation by sharing her interest 
in reading as well as introducing students to new and 
challenging books.

interactions, teacher behaviors and verbal 
explanations also impact the literacy environment and 

student motivation. allington (2002) explained that the 
classrooms he considered exemplary “encouraged, 
modeled, and supported lots of talk across the school 
day” (p. 755). allowing students to talk and interact 
with each other in positive ways revolving around 
reading and writing helps the students see the value in 
reading and writing while learning to value the opinions 
of others in a supportive environment. Capitalizing on 
teachable moments throughout a lesson is a valuable 
way to promote literacy and language development 
(Cambourne, 2000; morrow, Tracey, Woo & Pressley, 
1999; Wharton-mcdonald, Pressley & Hampston, 
1998). Positive interactions between the teacher and 
students are also an important part of the literacy 
environment. This includes the kind of feedback that 
students receive, which “should focus on what the 
student did correctly, as well as what needs to be 
done to improve future performance” (Konold, miller 
& Konold, 2005, p. 66). As mentioned by Cole (2012), 
receiving informative feedback that is not judgmental 
is an intrinsically motivating mechanism that helps 
students want to continue reading to “get it right.” 
Questioning is also a notable aspect of the human 
behavior feature of a positive literacy environment. 
asking open-ended and higher order questions helps 
students to develop better literacy skills and achieve 
at higher levels (Cambourne, 2000; morrow, Tracey, 
Woo & Pressley, 1999; Wharton-mcdonald, Pressley 
& Hampston, 1998).

The final aspect of the classroom literacy environment 
that Cambourne (2000) mentioned includes the 
literacy programs and routines that are implemented 
in the classroom setting. implementing explicit and 
systematic instruction in literacy is an important 
aspect of the literacy environment (Cambourne, 2000; 
morrow, Tracey, Woo & Pressley, 1999; Wharton-
mcdonald et al., 1997; Wharton-mcdonald, Pressley 
& Hampston, 1998). experiencing reading in a variety 
of formats, including whole group (read aloud and 
comprehension strategy instruction), small group 
(guided reading, skills groups, and/or continuation of 
strategy instruction), and one-on-one (with teacher 
and individual reading) is also an important aspect 
of the routines that should be implemented into the 
classroom structure. Planning motivating activities is 
another important aspect of the literacy environment. 
These activities engage students in the classroom 
literacy environment, and help them to want to learn 
to read and write.

attitude
lazarus and Callahan (2000) explained the importance 
of reading attitude, asserting that, “reading attitude 
fulfills a pivotal role in the development and use of 
lifelong reading skills” (p. 217). Throughout the last 
few decades, researchers have explored aspects 



GeorGia Journal of readinG 35 Volume 38, number 1   2015

of reading. in their comprehensive study of reading 
attitude, mcKenna, Kear, and ellsworth (1995) studied 
a national sample of over 18,000 students from 229 
schools in 95 districts across 38 states. They found 
a decline in attitude toward both academic and 
recreational reading from grades one through six. 
The researchers also found a relationship between 
negative recreational reading attitude and reading 
ability. Students who struggled with reading shared 
a worse attitude toward reading than students who 
were successful readers. in contrast, lazarus and 
Callahan (2000) found that students identified with 
a learning disability who received instruction in a 
resource room did not fully share in this negative 
trend. These researchers found a declining attitude 
toward recreational reading across grade levels, but 
attitudes toward academic reading remained steady 
from the primary to intermediate grades.

Williams and Hall’s (2010) study reiterated some key 
concepts about reading attitude and the motivation 
to read independently. Through the use of simple 
interviews, these researchers found support for 
the importance of allowing students time to read 
independently. This assertion comes from the fact that 
students reported that they learned more and became 
better readers by reading independently rather than 
being read to by their teacher or another adult. 
Students also indicated an understanding of reading 
being important to school success, as well as to later 
success in life. reading as a source of entertainment 
was one indication of these students’ attitudes toward 
reading. more than half of the participants shared 
that they read after school indicating their positive 
attitudes toward reading and a strong motivation to 
read independently. interestingly enough, the national 
reading Panel also did not include the importance of 
promoting independent reading or reading at home.

Williams and Hall (2010) also indicated the 
importance of teachers explaining to students the 
purpose of a teacher read aloud. Teachers can model 
comprehension strategies through a think aloud, but 
students need to understand why that is happening. 
Teachers should explicitly explain to students that 
listening to fluent reading can help them become better 
readers. Reading aloud is more than just a time filler 
so students need to understand the purpose behind 
this essential reading activity. This explanation and 
eventual understanding will lead to students feeling 
motivated and wanting to try the comprehension 
strategy during their own independent reading.

Sainsbury and Schagen (2004) found an interesting 
phenomenon when comparing data from 1998 to 
that obtained in 2003 in the united Kingdom. They 
studied students who were in years four and six in 

school, and discovered that students reported having 
more confidence in reading and needing less support 
in 2003 than in 1998. However, these students were 
also less likely to enjoy reading in 2003 as compared 
to 1998. These results were confirmed by the fact that 
new literacy legislation changed instruction delivery 
following the 1998 survey. These survey results 
indicate that students are losing their motivation to 
read because of literacy legislation and classroom 
instruction changes. as Cole (2012) explained, “a 
focus on tests and test preparation can push aside 
classroom events that support student interests, 
self-selected reading, and significant time to read” 
(p. 71). instead of creating literate, life-long readers, 
we are creating alliterate students who only read 
when they “have” to. Teachers need to find ways to 
motivate all students in the classroom setting despite 
the challenges of current legislation and testing 
requirements.

the research Setting
This research occurred in a major midwestern city. 
The researcher observed five focal students who 
were struggling readers for eight weeks in the spring 
of their second grade year. The data sources included 
observational field notes of the five struggling readers 
during class sessions as well as interviews with both 
the students and the teacher.

attitude toward reading: Self-reported  
and observational
for the purpose of this article, i will focus on one focal 
student in particular. ben (self-chosen pseudonym) 
showed a bit of a mismatch between his stated feelings 
toward reading and his actions in the classroom 
setting. During our first interview, Ben explained to me 
that he feels good about reading and likes to read a lot 
as well as explaining, “i like to read because you never 
know what’s going to happen next in a story and if you 
read and read and read then you know everything” 
(interview data, 4-29-11). in contrast to this apparent 
liking of reading, ben was often observed avoiding 
reading. These avoidance behaviors included talking 
after finishing his work on 5 occasions, going to the 
bathroom/getting a drink when he was supposed to 
be working or reading on five occasions, and having 
a book out without actively reading on 3 occasions. 
Ben’s thoughts on the importance of reading were also 
a bit concerning. ben shared that he feels that reading 
is important “because you need to know to read to go 
in grades and finish grades and just go up into another 
grade” (interview data, 4-29-11). This view of reading 
shows his view of its importance in the school setting, 
but this view will likely not lead to ben being a lifelong 
reader. at this stage he was not seeing the importance 
of reading for enjoyment.



GeorGia Journal of readinG 36 Volume 38, number 1   2015

on two occasions miss beckham intervened to help 
Ben choose books of interest. On the first occasion, 
miss beckham talked to ben about the importance of 
reading books all the way to the end in order to become 
a better reader. miss beckham helped ben choose a 
magic Tree House book to read that he seemed to 
enjoy reading for the next few days (field notes, 4-13-
11). The problem was that once Ben finished reading 
a book he had trouble choosing a new book on his 
own. by the end of my time in the classroom, miss 
Beckham was working with Ben again to try and figure 
out a book to read. During a conversation about Ben’s 
avoidance of reading one monday afternoon in the 
middle of may, miss beckham discovered that some 
of Ben’s issues stem from the fact that his mother 
“made” him read in the evenings and he found it to be 
boring. miss beckham discussed with him the kinds 
of books that he likes to read and ben shared that 
he liked reading books about boys being silly. miss 
beckham found some books on the bookshelf and ben 
chose to start reading the big nate series by lincoln 
Pierce (field notes, 5-18-11). Miss Beckham’s actions 
helped ben become a more active and motivated 
reader over the last couple of weeks of my time in their 
classroom. This actually leads to a major issue facing 
teachers. How can teachers help students become 
more engaged readers in an effort to improve their 
attitudes toward reading and motivation to read? The 
next section will examine what teachers can do to help 
students improve in both attitude and action.

what can teachers do?
Get to Know Your Students
Getting to know your students involves much more 
than just knowing their names. Teachers need 
to learn about their students’ attitudes toward 
reading, motivation to read, likes and dislikes, family 
background, academics, and literacy goals. in order to 
help a child grow and develop as a reader a teacher 
should learn about how a student feels about reading 
and him/herself as a reader (Strickland & Walker, 
2004). This can be done through a written survey, or a 
simple interview where the teacher sits down and has 
a conversation with the student.

Elementary reading attitude survey. mcKenna and 
Keer’s (1990) reading attitude survey is a validated 
and reliable way to learn more about how students 
feel about both academic and recreational aspects 
of reading. This survey helps teachers develop an 
understanding of students’ views on books, reading, 
and reading-related activities that occur both during 
school and at other times.

Motivation to read profile-revised. The motivation 
to read profile-revised (MRP-R) (Malloy, Marinak, 
Gambrell, & mazzoni, 2014) gives teachers insights 

into what drives their students to choose to read. 
This profile was originally created in 1996, but it has 
been revised to reflect recent changes in the literacy 
landscape, including linguistic and cultural changes. 
The mrP-r includes a survey portion that can be 
administered to the whole class and includes ten 
questions designed to measure how students value 
reading and ten questions that measure a student’s 
self-concept of him/herself as a reader. This tool also 
includes an open-ended conversational interview that 
can be accessed in a digital form for easier recording. 

Personal interest inventory. Teachers can ask both 
students and parents to share more information about 
the student and their family background in the form 
of a written survey. a simple survey completed by 
students allows teachers to learn more about what 
their students like and don’t like. A survey completed by 
parents during an open house night allows teachers to 
learn more about a child’s family life and background 
experiences.

The information obtained from these sorts of surveys 
helps the teacher choose materials of interest to 
be shared with students as read-alouds, placed 
on the bookshelf and used in instruction that are 
also appropriate to use with the child/children. The 
information gathered through these methods also helps 
teachers plan for instruction. developing a knowledge 
and understanding of a student’s family background 
and home situation is also a central aspect of getting 
to know your students. This background knowledge 
allows a teacher a better understanding and helps 
him/her to plan accordingly.

utilize a Variety of Motivating reading 
Experiences
The simple fact that reading helps students learn to 
read is often overlooked in classrooms. Students need 
a large variety of reading experiences when they are 
acquiring the difficult task of learning how to read and 
start developing their individual self-concept about 
reading. miss beckham worked hard to provide her 
second graders with a variety of reading opportunities 
each week, including small group reading, buddy 
reading, independent reading, and teacher read-
aloud.

Guided reading. Guided reading and other forms 
of small group reading allow the teacher to focus on 
specific skills while working with a smaller groups 
of students. It is essential that teachers work to find 
materials for guided reading that will interest the 
students and make reading seem relevant. Teachers 
also need to choose a variety of books to read with 
students.



GeorGia Journal of readinG 37 Volume 38, number 1   2015

Buddy reading. during buddy reading, two students 
are reading together. This can occur side-by-side, 
knee-to-knee or any other format that the teacher 
deems appropriate. This sort of reading experience 
allows more students to read a limited number of 
books, such as during an author study, in addition to 
allowing the children to reread a selection in a different 
format with the help of a peer.

independent reading. independent reading is an 
essential aspect of a child’s reading development. The 
opportunity to read a book of choice for an extended 
period of time can be invaluable to a reader at any 
stage of development. during this time, teachers can 
take the opportunity to help students choose texts that 
are appropriate for both the child’s ability as well as 
interest level. Student choice is an essential aspect 
in helping students become engaged and motivated 
to read (Edmunds & Bauserman, 2006; Senn, 2012; 
Williams, & Hall, 2010). Students need to have the 
opportunity to choose books as well as read them on 
a regular basis during the school day. one way to help 
students choose a variety of books is to give them a 
self-discovery bookmark that lists a variety of genres 
so students can keep track of the different genres they 
have read and enjoyed. This bookmark promotes the 
concept of choice while encouraging children to read a 
variety of books (Edmunds & Bauserman, 2006).

teacher read-aloud. a well-chosen read aloud book 
can greatly help students to become excited about the 
topic at hand as well as improve their comprehension 
skills, build vocabulary, develop an understanding 
of what fluent reading sounds like, and simply enjoy 
reading for the pleasure of reading (Cecil, 2011). 
When choosing these read-aloud books, teachers 
also need to consider what will appeal to all students, 
especially the boys. Teachers have a tendency to 
choose books that they, as the teacher and usually 
female, enjoy. Teachers need to work to share a large 
variety of books, including non-fiction, graphic novels, 
magazines, and other materials that appeal to boys 
more. because teachers usually do not share graphic 
novels, web sites, newspapers and magazines, boys 
tend to believe they are not appropriate reading 
options (Senn, 2012).

Create an Engaging and open literacy 
Environment
The environment and expectations created within 
a classroom will also affect a child’s attitude toward 
reading, ideas about reading, and desire to participate 
in the act of reading. What a teacher does to create 
her/his classroom literacy environment is essential to 
the development of all readers in that classroom.

access to a large variety of books. Children need to 

have access to all kinds of books, including a variety 
of genres and formats. fiction books should include all 
types of genres, such as traditional literature, fantasy, 
poetry, mystery, realistic fiction, historic fiction, and 
multicultural books. Nonfiction books should include 
biography books and informational books about a large 
variety of topics in both the science and social studies 
areas. Teachers and librarians need to be open-
minded about the kinds of books that are “appropriate” 
for reading. in order to promote reading among 
boys, teachers, parents, and librarians need to help 
boys understand that graphic novels, newspapers, 
magazines, and web sites are all appropriate forms 
of reading. Senn (2012) explained that boys “enjoy 
texts that can be collected (books in a series, baseball 
cards, etc.), have visual interest (graphic novels, 
websites), are succinct (newspaper or magazine 
articles), relate to their own lives, and are funny or 
rebellious (comics)” (p. 217). Some examples of these 
kinds of books include: the Captain underpants series, 
Jeff Smith has authored many graphic novels students 
may enjoy, Time for Kids, and national Geographic 
Kids are two magazines appropriate for all students, 
and Jack Ganto has written many books that boys can 
relate to, and marvel comics offer digital versions and 
a limited number of print versions of their comics at 
http://marvel.com/comics.

Create a “guys read” area. This suggestion is based 
on the work of Jon Scieszka. on his web site, guysread.
com, he explains the importance of embracing the 
idea that boys are different and have different needs 
when it comes to reading. He suggests including 
informational books by Seymour Simon, funny books 
by david Pilkey, books by Jack Ganto, some graphic 
novels, magazines, and newspapers. The guys read 
web site includes numerous suggestions of books that 
can be shared with reluctant readers.

Supportive teacher actions. Supporting all readers 
as they work to develop their skills is another way to 
create a literate environment. Students need to feel that 
they can take risks in order to grow and develop their 
reading skills. in this vain, praise and encouragement 
need to be specific and direct. Simply telling a child 
that she/he did a “good job” while reading does not 
help the child grow and learn as much as telling the 
child that he/she did a good job of self-correcting his/
her mistake or using the surrounding words to figure 
out the unknown words. Children need to know what 
they are doing right to continue to experiment and try 
new things in their reading development.

implement Motivating and relevant  
Classroom activities
The activities that occur in the classroom setting, both 
planned and unplanned, can have a huge impact on 



GeorGia Journal of readinG 38 Volume 38, number 1   2015

a child’s literacy development. It is important to make 
reading and literacy a motivating experience for all 
students. Some ways to do this include showing boys 
that men read too, making reading relevant to their 
lives and interests, being accepting of boys’ unique 
taste in books and reading materials, involving others 
in the efforts to reach boys, and explicitly teaching 
important literacy strategies.

Boys need male role models. finding ways to 
motivate reluctant boy readers can be difficult for 
female teachers. Senn (2012) and mcfann (2004) 
both reiterate the importance of the male role model 
in helping to motivate boys to read. one way to help 
motivate the boys is to start a guest reader program 
where male role models are invited to read a favorite 
book of their choice to the class. These guest readers 
can be parents, athletes from local universities or high 
schools, or other men who can help boys see the 
importance of reading. The bottom line is that the boys 
need to see the value of reading so that they will read. 

Make reading relevant. Students need to understand 
the purpose for the work they are asked to complete 
in the classroom setting. boys are more engaged in 
reading a text if they may learn something from it or if 
after reading the book they will write a book review for 
their classmates. allowing boys to read about topics 
relevant to their lives and interests is essential to their 
motivation.

Be accepting and perceptive. as i mentioned earlier, 
boys learn and develop as readers differently than 
girls. Teachers may need to re-evaluate what they 
consider to be appropriate. boys need to read books 
involving action, adventure and possibly violence (as 
long as it is age appropriate) and teachers need to 
allow boys these sorts of reading experiences.

involve others. Parents can be a teacher’s greatest 
allies, but parents also need help and support in 
knowing and fully understanding what their role is 
in supporting their child’s education. Teachers can 
support parents in their role by sharing information with 
them. This can include encouraging fathers to read to 
their children as much as mothers do. Teachers can 
also support the literacy of families by sending home 
literacy bags that contain books and writing materials 
based on a theme.

Strategy instruction. many students, especially 
struggling and reluctant readers, need teachers to 
explicitly teach them reading strategies. This explicit 
teaching requires authentic text and proven decoding 
and comprehension strategies without the need for a 
worksheet. in conjunction with this explicit teaching, 
students need to be involved in motivating activities 

that make them want to participate and learn from 
what they are doing in the classroom setting. asking 
open-ended questions that require higher-order 
thinking skills is another way to help keep students 
motivated and wanting to read and learn more in 
the classroom setting. These questions also help to 
promote close reading that requires deeper thinking. 
The easiest thing that teachers can do to utilize 
classroom happenings to promote better reading 
attitudes is to take advantage of teachable moments. 
This requires teachers to stay in the moment with their 
students so that they can take advantage of the little 
things that students do that can be used to help them 
learn more about reading and the things that they are 
doing correctly in the reading context.

Concluding thoughts
as described in the opening scenarios, classroom 
activities can serve as a way to both encourage 
and stifle student motivation to read. Ben became 
engaged and motivated to read when he was able 
to find something of interest. He benefited from his 
teacher taking the time to learn more about him as 
a reader and helping him to find a book of interest. 
His experiences illustrate the importance of teachers 
helping children find books of interest as well as a 
positive literacy environment.

Children who have a good attitude toward reading and 
are motivated to read will spend more time reading, 
which leads to higher achievement. The hope is 
that these readers will also become lifelong readers 
(Edmunds & Bauserman, 2006). Working to engage 
all learners will help to lead to the ultimate goal of 
promoting lifelong learners. 

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