In college undergraduate education programs, pre-service teachers are required to complete a content reading course. In this course, students may use a textbook that presents reading motivation theory as well as strategies teachers can use to motivate their students to read. However, those strategies may not work appropriately in the real-world classroom.
Studies of students’ beliefs about their own motivation indicated they are motivated to read by intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors. A survey of content reading textbooks indicated four broad aspects of reading motivation: setting a purpose, having access to a wide variety of materials, student self-selection of text, and social contexts of reading.
This study investigated the strategies adolescent/young adult teachers use to motivate their students to read as well as where the teachers learned these strategies. In interviews with five adolescent/young adult language arts teachers, the teachers reported the strategies they used to motivate their students to read. This study then used the four broad aspects of reading motivation to categorize strategies teachers reported using in their classrooms to motivate their students to read.
The results from the study indicate adolescent/young adult teachers use strategies they learned outside of their content reading textbooks to motivate their students to read. However, each of those strategies align with the four broad aspects of reading motivation. The results found in this study help future pre-service teachers as well as current teachers find new strategies to motivate their students to read.