Low literacy levels concern many teachers in Trinidad and Tobago. We hurt when we see our students struggling with basics such as reading and writing simple sentences and paragraphs both at the Primary and Secondary levels. As our students struggle, we scramble around to find materials which would help them improve in their literacy skills. I think that part of our struggle to teach our students lies within us as teachers. Learning to 'love to read' is also part of our problem, since as educators we are also often unmotivated when it comes to reading from a wide selection of available materials as we tend to get stuck in 'textbooks' and specific genres which we may prefer. When we 'love to read' and are open to diverse literacies, this is likely to be mirrored by our students who will then themselves develop better attitudes towards reading.
Loving to read is easier said than done however. It is therefore necessary to ourselves become motivated in order to motivate our students to become passionate about reading. One of the things I find has been useful for me as an individual is finding a purpose. As teachers we likely share at least a few common purposes one of which is to inspire our students to have goals and to work towards these goals in order to experience succcess. Reading in all school contexts is a natural extension towards acheiving our students' achieving academic goals, so as teachers many of us literally 'beg' our students to read. A common shortcoming amongst us however is that we often neglect our personal development while focusing on our students' success. Reading for pleasure as well as for academic purposes is vital to our personal development as teachers. As we find pleasure and satisfaction in reading, we become more motivated to read. In the long run, students benefit greatly because our own exposure to more literacies (from texts to blogs), allows us to me more open to the diverse ways of expression by our students.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
I agree that as role models for reading teachers sometimes lack that ability to susutain students interest. I think that it is even more important though that teachers help students to be intrinsically motivated to read. Therefore,it is student motivation to read that is critical.We have a responsibility to our students to engender in them a genuine love for reading.
ReplyDeleteYou made a very interesting observation in your comment. In an effort to get children to develop a love for reading we often come up with a number of ways and reading strategies to motivate them to read. But rarely do we speak of ways to motivate the teacher and the positive impact it could have on students' interest and reading capacity.
ReplyDeleteA lack of this psychological factor - motivation is connected to a teacher's attitude and self-efficacy in accepting and using technology in the classroom. Hence, professional development where teachers can be helped to use the internet-based tool can go a long way in helping them become more confident about their ability to use ICT tools to capture students' attention as they endeavour to improve reading capabilities.
Interesting post Alicia. I also agree that teachers who are motivated to read are better able to motivate their students to become passionate about reading. In fact, in an article written in "The Reading Teacher" Vol 56, 2002, Mariam Jean Dreher stated that "Morrison, Jacobs, and Swinyard (1999) found a strong positive association between teachers' personal reading and their use of classroom literacy practices that have been shown to be effective." She referred to the Engagement Theory which purports that engaged readers are self motivated, strategic, knowledgeable, and socially interactive about what they read. These qualities she believes form part of the hidden curriculum which is inevitably transferred to students via classroom interactions. It is vital therefore as teachers to remember that we should lead by example.
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