Motivating Students to Take Control of their Reading

In my social studies classroom reading is extremely important.  It is important that students know how to read textbooks, read primary source documents, as well as know what websites are appropriate or not to use when doing research.  Technology has influenced the way students do research.  They no longer go to the library to check out a book, they pull information up on the web.  This can be helpful at times but it can also be a crutch.  I had one particular student last year that didn't know how to summarize.  He simply wrote what he saw on the internet as his research.  I think most of the time the websites on the internet used for research can be above students reading level.  In order to help students understand what they are reading they need to learn to "tell us what was going on in their minds when they were reading-where they got stuck, what was confusing, what seemed easy and what did not" (Schoenbach, 1999, p. 54).  According to Schoenbach (1999) students, could learn strategies, skills, and habits that would help them become more engaged, fluent, and competent readers.  Once they are more engaged, fluent, and competent readers they will be more easily able to decide what websites are appropriate, and they will be more easily able to see the different viewpoints in which the different text was written.

One of the biggest things students need to learn is that reading happens in our minds.  We need to be thinking about what we are reading while we are reading it.  This is called metacognition.  It is important students learn to ask questions about confusing parts of text and feel comfortable doing so.  According to Schoenbach (1999) some important steps in clarifying confusion while reading include: Ignore the unclear part and read on to see if it gets clearer, reread the unclear part, reread the sentence(s) before the unclear part, and try to connect the unclear par to something you already know.

Students need to learn why reading is important.  Why is it important to others and why is it important to them.  Once students have a belief that reading is important to them, and they enjoy it on some level, students are more likely to become successful at reading to learn.  They also need to have goals for themselves.  If they think school is stupid and there is no point in learning to read they are less likely going to succeed at reading and in life. 

Learning to choose books students like is very important.  According to Schoenbach (1999) students should take a few steps when choosing a book, these include: Read the back of the book to see if it is interesting, find the subject I like to read, ask a friend, look for an author you like, skim through the book-read a few pages, find a book that relates to you (p. 64).  Silent sustained reading can be a very effective tool when helping students change their habits and attitudes towards reading.  Students should be help accountable during SSR time, they should be encouraged to share good books with others, and they should not only log about their book but they should also log about the metacognitive process of reading their book.  Important things to log about are: I got confused when...., I was distracted when....., I started to think about...., I stopped because..., among many others.  When students start to log about the metacognitive process of reading their book, they start to consciously realize what they are doing as readers.  This is a great way for a reader to be able to begin to consciously change reading habits for the better.  A great way to hold them accountable after they have read an AR book is to have them do a project on the book and share it with the class (Schoenbach, 1999, pp. 63-69)