According to Kamil 2003, Sen, Partelow & Miller, 2005, it appears that progress in lifelong learning in literacy is heavily impacted on by motivation, enjoyment and engagement. This has to do with the 'how' and 'why' of reading with how a person reads having to do with the content and form of the literature before him, the conventions of the language, text based skills and the reading strategies used, among other considerations.
Why a person reads has to do with motivation, the individual's background, the personal interest in a subject/ topic/genre. This is true for me and I am sure for many other persons. In fact, right now I would prefer to be reading some historical novel, fraught with adventure and susupense, (but alas! current reality with deadlines is more presssing).
Research supports the view that to promote reading and writing in our students we should focus on their areas of interests as it will lend itself to mastery in reading and in content areas. They need to own their literacy and Kathryn Au (1999), defines ownership as "students valuing literacy." (p.5)
The Internet may well prove to be the most effective facilitator of this ownership as we can use it to schedule time to read in our classrooms, where students will have a wide choice of material that suits their fancy, there could be student to student discussions as well as student to teacher discussions online about texts read and well we know by now the benefits of online literature circles (older post - Preferred Environment). In effect, the Internet can be used to successfully scaffold our students' learning.
Here are some links I hope you might find useful:
http://fac-staff.seattle.edu/kschinoe/web/LitCircle
www.allamericareads.org/lessonplan/strategies/during/litcircl.htm
http://teacher.scholastic.comprofessional/techexpert/litcircles.3.htm
People are motivated to read what is interesting to them,they enjoy this and would normally be fully engaged in the reading process. Our students are no different, they pay attention to want interests them.However, we have to impress upon them that it is important to be functionally literate so even though 'you may not enjoy it, still read it', 'own it'.
ReplyDeleteMotivating students to read in the content area is a difficult task so your suggestion for using the internet to help the students be engaged in reading is welcomed