MEMO
To: Denise Sawyer
From: Jackie Stremlow
Date: November 30, 2009
Re: Fostering Reading Motivation
In my elementary reading graduate course that I am taking this semester, I read an article on
fostering reading motivation in elementary students that I thought might be of interest to you.
The reference for the article is:
Grambrell, Linda B. (1996). Creating classroom cultures that foster reading motivation.
The Reading Teacher. Sep 1996; Vol 50(1), (pg 14-25). Research Library Core.
In the article, Linda Gambrell presents research information and theory regarding the role of
motivation in the development of literacy. She begins her article by discussing what research
and theory suggest regarding the role of motivation in the development of literacy. Scholars in
the 1980’s cautioned that in response to research that focused on the cognitive aspects of reading,
such as prior knowledge and reading strategy, “in order for student to develop into mature,
effective readers, they must possess both the skill and the will to read” (pg 15). These warnings
then lead to other research focused on finding a balance between the cognitive skills and the
motivation for reading. This research, which was primarily conducted by the National Reading
Research Center, came to suggest that “an engaged reader is motivated, knowledgeable, strategic
and socially interactive” (pg 16).
One reading incentive program which emerged from these findings was the “Running Start
Program” or RS which was developed by Reading Is Fundamental. This program presents six
factors which attribute to improved reading motivation, which I will discuss at the end of this
memo in regards to your own classroom.
The RS program was designed to improve literacy motivation in first grade students by allowing
for more opportunity for reading both at home and at school. First of all, the program enriched
first grade classrooms with new books to expand their classroom libraries by allowing the
teachers to choose the book titles for their classroom based upon their students’ abilities and
interests. After providing more texts, the next part of the program was a challenge to the
students to read twenty one books in ten weeks as part of their theme for “creating readers in the
21st century.” As students read with partners or by themselves, they kept track of their progress
and were provided with reading incentives such as bookmarks and stickers. Through interviews
and surveys from parents, teachers and students, it was shown that even after the ten week
program was over; students were still very motivated to read and were discussing books with
their friends and family more than before the start of the RS program. Parents also showed
improvements in reading interest at home and stated that many were discussing books more,
even a year later.
As I read about this RS program, I immediately thought of the MIBliSi program that we are
beginning at Max Larsen. I thought that we could easily replicate this type of program at our
school using the literacy portion of the MIBliSi grant that was awarded to our school this year.
In addition to the positive behavior incentives, we could organize a reading program, with the
help of the library, to allow students to also earn “Thunderbird Bucks” for reaching a reading
benchmark. They could then use their bucks to buy books or to participate in whole school
activities that we have created though the PBS team.
The last part of the article focused on the six factors that have been studied through the research
conducted by the National Reading Research Center to boost student motivation. I felt that it
would be more helpful to you, as a fellow first grade teacher, if I might offer some suggestions or
reaffirm how your classroom can meet these factors.
1. The teacher as an explicit reading model: While I am aware that you read aloud to
your students frequently throughout the day, one suggestion that came from the article
was to share appropriate excerpts from books that you are personally reading to your
students to demonstrate to students that you are a “real” reader and you yourself read for
pleasure, enjoyment and learning.
2. A book rich classroom environment: I think that your classroom is extremely book
rich, especially after we decided to group and create labeled book baskets of similar
theme, author and content area last year after the Debbie Miller conference.
3. Opportunities for choice: Having observed your classroom many times, I can confirm
that you allow for a lot of choice with book selection. I think that having attended the
Debbie Miller conference allowed us to work on these six strategies without being aware
of it at the time. I would just suggest that you continue to provide diversity in their book
choices during reader’s workshop and independent reading.
4. Opportunities to interact socially with others: This is one area that I feel that I
personally need to work on and so a suggestion to both of us then would be to allow for
more partner reading and whole group discussion about what students are reading.
5. Opportunities to become familiar with lots of books: I would like to work harder on
encouraging students to recommend books to one another and give reasons why as a way
to familiarize students with other genres and authors that they might be typically reading.
I think that one great way to do this would be to share books with our “big buddies” that
visit once a week.
6. Appropriate reading-related incentives: While the RS program sounds interesting, I
would be a little cautious about what incentives would be appropriate for building
intrinsic motivation. My students love bookmarks and so I might suggest that we could
make bookmarks once a month or around a holiday to help boost an interest in reading. It
is possible that our classes could also pair up to read together once or twice a week to
motivate reading among and build upon their social interactions.
Overall I was very excited as I read the article because I feel that much of it is already present in
my daily teaching but I do feel that I have more focus on areas of weakness that I hope to
improve upon. I hope that you also found the article interesting and my suggestions helpful. If
you have any questions or any ideas for me please let me know. I would be happy to share a
copy of the article with you as well for your own reading.