LITERACY NEWS
Student Motivation and
Engagement in Literacy Learning
Teachers can help students build
confidence in their ability to comprehend
content-area texts, by providing a
supportive environment and offering
information on how reading strategies can
be modified to fit various tasks. We should
also make literacy experiences more
relevant to students' interests, everyday life,
or important current events. Here are a few
ways to increase student motivation and
engagement.
Establish meaningful and engaging content
learning goals around the essential ideas of a
discipline as well as the specific learning
processes students use to access those ideas.

Monitor students' progress over time as they
read for comprehension and develop more
control over their thinking processes
relevant to the discipline. Provide explicit
feedback to students about their progress.

When teachers set goals to reach a certain
standard, students are likely to sustain their
efforts until they achieve that standard.

However, if students set their own goals,
they are more apt to be fully engaged in the
activities required to achieve them.
By: U.S. Department of Education
From All About Adolescent Literacy (adlit.org)
Provide a positive learning environment that
promotes students' autonomy in learning.


Allowing students some choice of
complementary books and types of reading
and writing activities has a positive impact
on students' engagement and reading
comprehension.
Empowering students to make decisions
about topics, forms of communication, and
selections of materials encourages them to
assume greater ownership and
responsibility for their engagement in
learning.
FALL 2014
Make literacy experiences more relevant to
students' interests, everyday life, or important
current events.

Look for opportunities to bridge the activities
outside and inside the classroom.

Tune into the lives of students to find out
what they think is relevant and why, and
then use this information to design
instruction and learning opportunities that
will be more relevant to students.

Consider constructing an integrated
approach to instruction that ties a rich
conceptual theme to a real-world
application.
If you have any questions or would like assistance, please stop in room 121 or
email one of your literacy coaches.
Lauren Baier
baiela@whsd.net
Christyn Coles
colechr@whsd.net
LITERACY NEWS
FALL 2014