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Friday, July 24, 2020

2020 Medley #15 | Live Long and Prosper

2020 Medley #15 | Live Long and Prosper




HOW TO MOTIVATE A READER? MAKE THEM FEEL GOOD
In this recent blog post, Russ Walsh provides us with seven things teachers can do to foster a desire to learn to read in their students. Unfortunately, if students come to school without the desire to learn to read, it just makes it that much harder for teachers to convert them into avid readers. The suggestions in Walsh’s post will help, of course, and with many students (and with perseverance) it will succeed. However, it would be much easier for students if their development of a desire to learn to read began at home.
The easiest motivational tool, and number two on Walsh’s list, is read aloud.
Reading aloud makes the reading process a pleasurable experience before they even get to school, because, as Jim Trelease wrote, “Human beings will voluntarily do over and over that which brings them pleasure…When we read to a child, we’re sending pleasure messages to the child’s brain.” In other words, it feels good.