For the Love of Reading...!

What makes some children want to pick up a book during leisure time when some prefer to pick up a video game controller.  The answer seems simple; the love of reading.  That being said, as we like to make our students do, let's dig a little deeper.

Motivation is the driving force behind anything.  We need the motivation to get up every day to go to work.  We need the motivation to eat healthy, to exercise, and to fly straight.  Personally, I need the motivation to read.  It would be nice if motivation was transferable, to click on a button and wha-la instant motivation.  But al-las it is not.

In a nutshell, the problem of motivation is this: we want our students to do something we think is important, but they may not "choose" to do it. Some students (and adults for that matter) see reading as a task that must be done to fill a checkbox, be it homework or classwork, they see reading as work.  This is, of course, not an unusual problem in classrooms. The student who doesn’t do the required work will receive low grades. An unmotivated reader tries to persuade themselves that reading is not all that important.

We want our students to read, and surely we want reading to be a positive experience. What if I offered a reward? Say I told my students, “If you read that book, I’ll give you an ice cream sundae!” The student might take me up on the deal, and they'd probably have a positive experience. So won’t they then be motivated to read? It sounds so simple that it might be too good to be true.

In the short term, rewards do work. If you find a reward that the student cares about, they will read in order to get it. But what we’re really concerned about is their attitude toward reading; we want the student to read even if we’re not around to dole out sundaes. Are we motivating a student to read or to get a reward?  Research indicates that the answer is probably the reward.  In fact, the reward is likely to make the attitude less positive.

How Do We Inspire Our Kids to Love Reading?

1. Meet students in their comfort zone.

Talk to them about their favorite movies, TV shows, or video games. Find books that expand on those universes and characters that already have kids captivated. Show them how dynamic visuals and written storytelling work together in comic books and graphic novels. Have kids make their own comics or write their own fan-fiction, and share their work with their classmates.

2. Surround kids with good books.

When we give kids access to a rich library, we provide hundreds of opportunities every day for their eye to fall on an intriguing title, or for them to see another student choose a book and become engrossed in it. When we surround kids with books, we show them that reading is something that permeates life, something to do at any moment of the day. When we give kids a library and let them choose their own reading material, we provide opportunities for learning that are deeper, more pervasive, more personal, and most importantly, student-driven.

3. Read books aloud.

The best thing that you can do to foster a child's love of reading is to read with him or her. Reading aloud is a low-pressure and foolproof way to engage the imagination through the written word. Once you have them well and truly hooked, leave copies of the book lying around the classroom and give them free reading time. How many students do you imagine will choose to pick up the book and finish it on their own?

4. Show students how much you love reading.

In my childhood, it was my mother, an avid reader, who was my first introduction to the joy of reading, but teachers are no less influential in the lives of their students. When I look back to my school days, I remember a few teachers whose passion for a subject inspired a similar passion in me. When teachers find ways to show students how important reading is in their own lives, it opens the door for reading to be important in their students' lives.

Only the Beginning

A love of stories is hardwired into every human being, and we have more media for receiving these stories than we've ever had in the course of human history. In video games, we get to guide a character through a story. In movies and television, we can see an entire life play out in front of us in a few short hours. And in books, we can read about the complex emotions and motivations that wrestle beneath the surface of a stoic façade. Each medium has its unique appeal and limitations. When used together, we can inculcate in our students not only a love for storytelling in all of its forms but give them a sense of how we as human beings have storytelling in our DNA.