Today, it is a challenge for teachers to convince resistant readers that literature holds secrets, adventures, and revelations worthy of their time and attention. When teachers demonstrate how to explore literature and guide students in doing so, teachers help break down barriers that are common among middle school students. Unfortunately, when…

The reading students are required to do for school bears little semblance to the reading they do outside of school. Students today are reading the same texts in school that students read a generation ago, but the varieties of text used outside of school are much different. One result is that many students are unmotivated to become readers.…

Research on early adolescence reveals significant declines in intrinsic motivation for reading and points out the need for metacognitive strategy use among middle school students. Research indicates that explicit instruction involving motivation and metacognitive support for reading strategy use in the context of a discipline is an efficient and…

When teachers ask their students to read something in class, they often encounter students who just wait for everyone else to finish reading before they do. These type of students are the ones most likely to dislike reading and they are just content to wait it out. Teachers may counteract this by requiring students to answer questions in writing…

Shouldn't reading be aesthetically, emotionally, and intellectually enjoyable? Yet, as literature becomes complex in middle and high school with multiple characters, points of view, or difficult language, many adolescents forgo the idea of discovering enjoyment in literature. Based on the author's experience as an educator, researcher, and…

The writer describes a book project that successfully motivated middle school students with learning disabilities to independently practice comprehension strategies while reading material at their independent levels. Conception of the project, example homework and activities, development of a book club, and benefits for students are described.…

The authors, one a teacher-researcher and the other a literacy researcher, take on the daunting task of vocabulary instruction in a school with a socioeconomically diverse population. They have designed a literacy program that emphasizes vocabulary development and uses personal choice (for motivation) and scaffolded literacy strategies (for…

In an age where multi-media, such as video games and computer generated games, are consuming the lives of young adults, students are reading fewer novels and engaging less in recreational reading activities. Because of the ever-changing diverse student population teachers are searching for ways to be competitive motivators. Today, teachers need to…

"May I go to the bathroom?" While this hardly an unusual question from any middle-level student, the number of students who suddenly need to leave the room increases when a teacher assigns a textbook passage to read. Whether it is to use the restroom, visit their locker, or see the school nurse, these students will do just about anything to keep…

This study examined middle school students' reading motivation and its relations to their performance on a standardized test (ISTEP+) in reading. Participants included 388 sixth- and eighth-grade students from two public middle schools. There were 229 females and 159 males. Participants responded to the Reading Motivation Questionnaire after they…

In this article, the author relates how she helped organize the Middle School Community Read project, a community reading project for middle school students in her school district. The project aimed to reverse the trend of a community experiencing loss of male readers as they become teens. First, the author and her group formed a small committee…

In a time of No Child Left Behind and strict accountability measures for teachers and schools, the active engagement of learners is at the heart of effective literacy instruction. Educators strive to make their students competent, independent readers. They want them to read for personal purposes, such as information seeking or pleasure. One way to…

The goal of this brief, prepared jointly by the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (NHCSL) and the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI), is to bring to policy saliency--at the national, state, and local levels--to the educational crisis caused by the under-achievement of Hispanic youth. Specifically, this report addresses two issues of…

Research has shown that extensive reading offers a wide range of learning benefits to second language (L2) learners. However, most studies on L2 extensive reading are conducted collectively on groups of learners and do not provide a detailed picture of individual experience. Moreover, there are few studies conducted on the reading experiences of…

This article describes how Fantasy Football curriculum can be used to motivate students. (Contains 7 figures.)