ACCESS is an organizational framework to help educators plan instruction that prepares students for high-stakes tests and promotes self-regulated literacy learning. ACCESS stands for tasks that are authentic, that require collaboration among students, that challenge students, that culminate with an end product, that allow self-direction by giving…

Teachers who plan content area instruction with evidence-based principles of reading engagement in mind will seek ways of making learning interesting and worthwhile; will create learning contexts that maximize participation in reading, writing, and thinking; and will always account for motivation and engagement when considering students' classroom…

Sixteen students, randomly selected from a pool of 91 fourth-graders in a midsize elementary school, were interviewed about their reading choices. The interviews revealed that children had different degrees of motivation, following several patterns. Children chose narrative literature for these reasons: (1) The books related to their personal…

Can students identify the practices that motivate them to read? If asked to evaluate which components of a reading program are beneficial in motivating them, can they identify a particular practice and explain why it was helpful? These were the two major questions asked of 22 fifth-grade students reflecting on their fourth-grade experience. A…