Motivation: A Big Problem with Literacy Instruction

After studying literacy instruction for the past month in my Education class, I now realize that the biggest challenge with teaching reading to students is motivating them to actually want to read. I can think back to my time in middle school and I had a hard time being motivated to read. Can you think of all the other fun things that kids can actually do other than read? They can play video games, surf the net, use social netwroking sites, and the list goes on and on. Reading is no where to be found on this list because kids have a hard time wanting to sit down and read for fun.

The first problem with this is that they already have a huge amount of reading for school, which usually takes up a lot of time. This reading does not personally connect to the students and they find very little relevance in the reading. With that being said, kids are not motivated to read for literacy instruction. As stated earlier, they are not attracted to their readings.

But as educators, we need to solve this problem. If we are going to develop a literate society, we need to figure out ways to motivate students to read. We have to find innovative ideas to make reading fun and worthwhile for students. It is a crucial skill that kids must learn how to do because it is needed in every day lives.

My solution to this problem is rather simple. It begins with the educator and the books that students are assigned to read. We need to find literature that is meaningful. We need books that students can relate too. I guarentee if a student reads a book that they fidn interesting, they would be much more motivated to read.

Now that I have suggested an idea, I am interested to see what you think? What are some other ways that we can motivate students about literacy instruction?