Create+a+Learning+Environment+that+is+Encouraging+and+Challenging

“Reluctant learners thrive on a balance of being praised for specific accomplishments and being challenged to attain high expectations.” (Sancore J 2008) Sancore identified that while teachers praise the struggling student, they often use an interrogation approach of questioning where there is an emphasis on low-level literal questions. Sancore concluded that this was because many teachers believe that their students “don’t have the ability to make inferences or to think critically during reading”. (Sancore J 2008) Although this is well intentioned students, even those struggling should be given the opportunity to engage in challenging learning activities. By designing lessons that can provide these struggling students with an opportunity to engage in challenging thinking they will be further developing other skills and therefore will become more confident.

Sancore uses the example that even non-readers can listen to a story being read aloud and respond to the teacher’s questioning such as ‘What do you think will happen next in the story?’ They can also react critically and personally after the story has been read aloud and by using open-ended questions like ‘If you were the main character, how would you have approached the problem?’ the questioning becomes non-threatening as there is no right or wrong answer.

By avoiding the need for the students to read the text alone the struggling readers are given a chance to “respond personally, think critically, and share collaboratively with peers in an interesting and meaningful context.” (Sancore J 2008) The students then become more positive and confident in relation to literacy lessons and therefore more motivated to participate in them.

Within the article ‘Reluctant Learners to Inspired Learners’, Joseph Sancore promoted the strategy of altering tasks to suit particular needs, but he did not discuss how difficult this would be to cater for all the struggling students within a classroom. Also it could not be considered beneficial to exclude all solo reading in the literacy lessons, so at some stage the struggling readers would need to read a text for themselves.

 

Exley, Burton and Barnett (2007) articles highlights a strategy which is put was put in place in an Australian school. The program has been developed to achieve I higher motivation level in the early years of school, to want to read. The challenge to educators is to encourage ‘motivating behaviours of persistence, planning, and study management in children to help them become more engaged in reading’. During a Professional Experience round, Samantha Quinsey was in a grade two class, during this time, I was able to witness a student which wasn’t motivated to read during the literacy time, the student would not complete the tasks given whether it be for writing or reading. The teacher was monitoring the students’ progress and at the end of the three week block, the student was motivated through the books and writing activities to meet the students’ needs and level of understanding. This allowed the student to succeed and be motivated to continue to learn. The educators wanted to provide learners with a positive and motivating environment. This was done through supporting and challenging students through, providing books to suit their level of learning, visual cues such as posters and activities. Books were set to a theme for the week and activities which related students to the theme were used. Educators wanted students to develop positive self-concepts so that they want to learn. As well as the educators promoting intrinsic motivations, the teachers promoted motivation through extrinsic ways such as having a celebration of their learning at the end of each week and certificates. Students completed activities such as making book marks, school newsletter reports and happy grams. This prompted student to read the book and encourage students to think about what happened and what their views of the books was. This meant that the students were being encouraged to participate in activities associated to reading with the ‘goal to create the time students spent reading for pleasure and encourage behaviours for effective readers’ (Exley Burton and Barnett, 2007).