Lee, J., & Zentall, S. S.
(2012). Reading motivational differences among groups: Reading disability (RD), attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), RD+ADHD, and typical comparison. Learning & Individual Differences, 22(6),
778-785.
Purpose of the article: The purpose of Lee and Zentall’s article
was to assess the reading motivation among students with reading disabilities,
without disabilities, and with/without ADHD.
What was studied/discussed: This study analyzed the motivation of
133 students between 2nd and 5th grade levels. Lee and
Zentall analyzed a correlation between motivation and students with reading disabilities
and those without reading disabilities.
Important Terms: Reading disabilities, ADHD, Reading motivation
Results:
Lee and Zentall’s results were that students with combined reading disabilities
and ADHD had lower verbal and full cognitive ability scores than the ADHD and
non disability groups. Students with reading disabilities also had lower scores
than the non disability group. Lee and Zentall found that all the students in their
study had low self-efficacy and low motivation. “For students with reading disabilities,
group effects of lower intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and
greater work avoidance than students without disabilities was documented across
grade levels (pg 783.)”
So
What? Every teacher will teach a student with ADHD or a
student with reading disabilities during their career. Learning about students’
motivations can help a teacher connect with students to potentially ensure
learning is taking place. This article provides insight into reading
motivations to a specific group of students with disabilities and can be
helpful to teachers. I have found myself trying to motivate my students to
study more and be more active in their learning and have often found little
change in them. I found it really interesting and I thought about how I could
use knowledge from this article to scaffold reading assignments to my students
with ADHD. How can I as a teacher motivate students who lack the motivation for
the readings? I love the use of inquiry in my classroom. It is a vital,
driving factor in science as a subject and when a student gets on a topic they
are interested in I try and answer questions they have or nudge them towards
doing research on their own to expand their knowledge, even if it has little to
do with the lesson for the day. Like this assignment if I could assign more
inquiry based assignments where students read and research concepts that interest
them in science they may be more motivated to read. If they have that connection with a concept wouldn’t they be more
interested in learning about it more in depth? I would hope that this would
solve issues I have with motivation in my class, but even when we are covering
concepts they all find interesting there was still little motivation to do readings
or study. Would group readings make the
assignments more accessible to students with ADHD? I believe it might. The
few group readings I have used in class have had surprising success. Stronger
readers were paired with weaker readers and I saw both students reading and
actively working instead of the weaker reader relying on the stronger reader to
complete the assignment.
I like that you concentrated on this demographic for your So What? article. I think some of the most useful skills, techniques, and tools, I have learned for teaching come from learning to differentiate instruction to meet the need of diverse learners. World Language teachers often only teach college bound students so we rarely have requirements to show proof of differentiation other than just wanting to use good methodology. However, learning to teach to this base, really improves my ability to teach students at all levels. Good techniques tend to cross achievement levels. Also, teaching lower level language teaches very basic skills and as an expert in the language it is easy for me to forget that my students need things to be very elementary. Establishing good reading skills in the very foundation of learning. If I plan my instruction with the assumption that I need to be able to differentiate and provide alternate explanations from the beginning, I lessen the likelyhood of having to reteach things later. Incorporating lots of formative assessments in instruction also helps with this so we can constantly revise our teaching strategies to student needs. If we are teaching to engage the hardest to reach students, we will reach all students.
ReplyDeleteFostering intrinsic learning is one of the teacher's hardest jobs. Research has shown that students are more likely to engage with topics that mean more to them personally. I think that one of the best ways to help students make connections between the reading and their lives is to find out what they're interested in. Ask them to fill out an interest survey so that you can point to relationships between their interests and the work. Their interests probably involve multiple disciplines even if they don't realize it, and I think that finding out how science relates to their interests could spark motivation. Relating the subject matter to students' interests gives every student access to the material because it gives them a starting point, a foundation on which to grow their knowledge.
ReplyDeleteLike World Language and Science, math has its own language, and needs to be taught as such. I think that the development of problem-solvers who do not shy away at a difficult task (a habit which could possibly contribute to low motivation) should be of the utmost importance to all teachers.
Motivation is one of the biggest problems in education. Students are used to always being entertained whether it is through t.v., listening to music on their ipod, etc. The classroom cannot always have this flashy entertainment approach, but this is what teachers are competing against. Inquiry based approach is great and gets students doing tasks on their own as opposed to being told what to do and think. Being aware of students with disabilities appears to be crucial in not only helping that student, but helping other students remain focused. I agree that group activities with intentional pairings or groupings may be one of the best solutions. The problem of motivation, however, is a day to day battle.
ReplyDeleteI often wonder if group activities benefit is due to students realizing that they are not as bad as they thought or not the only one having problems. It seems that finding an interest of a student is very important, but an alternative way of looking at motivation is finding out what the student is the least confident about. I would guess that working on that student's Achilles heel might alleviate some of the defiance to learn.
ReplyDeleteSome students have problems that cannot be solved but can only be managed. I think these are the students that are the most difficult to try to help, because they will have such limited rate of improvement. Motivating these students is definitely elusive. The ADHD kids are difficult cases.
These are just guesses from students I work with that are not part of my class but ones that other teachers need help with. Another odd factor in getting a student to learn. Sometimes you need someone not invested in the class; someone who has no authoritarian responsibilities and has no objectives. This person might be able to seem less school-like and could tutor the student more effectively because there are no perceived risks to the student.
Students react to different people in very odd ways. It's interesting to see.