Motivation and Comprehension

"Motivating Low Performing Adolescent Readers" (Decker-Collins, 1996) is an oldie but goodie about the link between low comprehension and low motivation. It sort of states the obvious, that low performing readers need to have a valid reason (or well established purpose) to read something.

It points to the idea that reading skills are also thinking skills, and how instilling student choice, making texts more accessible, and most importantly, how the best way to improve reading skill is to read more--something that will not happen if we are not able to motivate students to read and to think deeply about what they read.

I like to re-read this article over the summer to remind myself of these important ideas.

The full text of the article can be found here:

http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED396265.pdf