Learning From Motivated Readers

“If we want students to be motivated readers, look at how motivated readers read.” Teachers sometimes believe that students need careful preparation to read a book or that they have to be bribed or prodded into reading. Yet some children jump right into books, reading without the benefit of preparatory steps or the intervention of either a carrot or a stick. Two principles underlie the motivation of these eager readers: (1) Reading is personal. (2) Reading is a natural process. The following common characteristics of motivated readers reflect these two principles:

1. Motivated readers read not for others, but for their own purposes. They read what is important to them and know that real reading is not done to answer someone else’s questions or fill out a worksheet.
2. Motivated readers have personal and identifiable likes and dislikes in books: subject matter, authors, illustrators, formats, styles, and so on.
3. Motivated readers feel rewarded during the reading process. They find immediate pleasure in the book and don’t read because they will need the information next year.
4. Motivated readers do not feel trapped by a book. They can put it down without guilt when it no longer meets their needs.
5. Motivated readers are not hesitant about passing judgment on a book. They have their own viewpoints and do not apologize for them.
6. Motivated readers read at their own rate. They skip, scan, linger, and reread as necessary or desirable.
7. Motivated readers don’t feel obligated to remember everything they read. They find reading worthwhile even if they can’t recall every concept or idea, and they allow themselves to skip over words they don’t know as long as they understand the idea or story.
8. Motivated readers read broadly, narrowly, or in between, depending on how they feel.
9. Motivated readers develop a personal attachment to books they like.
10. Motivated readers find time to read regularly.

Motivated readers don’t look over their shoulders as they read. They are in charge. We adults shouldn’t get excited when they put down books without finishing them, when they devour what we think are worthless books, when their taste does not reflect our own, or when they read very narrowly.

Yet teachers with the best of intentions can interfere with motivated readers. Often the most difficult hurdle is simply getting out of their way. Whatever an adult does that keeps the child from becoming involved with the book is something to be avoided. It is easy to spot mind-numbing exercises that treat the book as merely a repository of facts to be mined, and those practices should be avoided.

Yet even the right principles can be followed with too much fervor, as is evident in the following two examples.

Rose Napoli is an experienced, dedicated teacher who became enthusiastic about trade books and their classroom use during a summer institute. She returned to her teaching inflamed with ideas about allowing students to choose their own books, providing time for them to read, and initiating discussions based on their personal responses. The trouble was that her enthusiasm had become so strong, she simply overpowered the children. She jumped immediately into questions about their involvement with the stories and so peppered them with requests for their feelings that even those children who initially responded began to keep quiet. Only when she began to let students talk from their own perspectives, and sincerely listened to them, did the children start to respond honestly. In time, the simplistic but honest comments became more complex and perceptive, and Rose eventually found the kind of student involvement she earlier had tried to force (Calkins, 1994, pp. 243–249).

Gordon Whiting, a professor at Brigham Young University, prided himself on allowing his 9-year-old daughter adequate rein in selecting the books she would read. He was pleased to see her choose The Little House series and was not bothered when she finished them all and began immediately to reread the seven titles in the slipcase. She read them a third time, then a fourth. When she began a fifth reading, he wondered if she wouldn’t be served better by reading something else but said nothing. As she started the sixth time, he had to hold his tongue. When she picked up the first book to begin a seventh reading, he could keep his peace no longer. He did not forbid her to read them again but insisted she read one different book before returning to the series. Result? She quit reading altogether. Chances are good that she would have moved to other titles in her own time, but clearly she was getting something from the series that caused her to read the books again and again. We simply don’t know what goes on in the heads of children when they are immersed in a book. If they are to become motivated readers, we must allow them to be in charge.