In reading the article on motivating readers, I found some very
interesting information to help me understand my oldest daughters lack of desire for reading and to
help my youngest daughter develop better reading skills. I can relate with the authors findings that students generally rated themselves low in reading ability on the survey yet during interviews they stated many types of texts that they enjoyed reading. My oldest daughter claims to dislike reading, yet I find her reading many types of texts on a regular basis; researching topics online, cookbooks, and two of her favorite series, Baby Mouse and The Homework Machine. I find myself consistently puzzled at her claim that she dislikes reading. I have reason to believe that she claims to dislike reading when it becomes something she has to do, rather than when she wants to. My youngest daughter struggles with reading comprehension and recollection. Based on the article, if I provide both my daughters with text that I know they are interested in, then I can not only improve comprehension, but increase the frequency of their reading.
As teachers, especially in a world filled with resources; both electronic and print, we need to access a variety of resources to give students options to find text that interests them. It's not that students do not like reading however they do not like what they are reading. The next big question is how can we get students more interested in academic reading? I think finding articles with grade appropriate, academic language related to students interests would be a start. Also, the authors mention reading aloud to students to encourage academic reading comprehension. Overall, I think the article helped me to make sense of current reading issues I have in my own home, and as a teacher helped me to understand why student's claim they do not like reading.
I totally agree with you! My fiance hates reading, but i'm constantly finding him surfing CNN.com or reading about this or that realated to the online game we play. I burst into laughter when I hear him say "I hate reading" it's such a lie! I also agree with getting a student to read something that's interesting to him. I did a task where students were at a super-hero convention and they had to solve systems of equations in order to figure out where the next super-hero was. Many of them took the task over a plug and chug worksheet because they loved superheroes! It was great! I need to fix some of the problems, but I definitely will be using that one again!
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