"Examining the Effects of a School-Wide Reading Culture
on the Engagement of Middle School Students"
by: Erika Daniels & Michael Steres
(2011)
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APA Citation (from WSCU library website):
Daniels, E., & Steres, M.
(2011). Examining the Effects of a School-Wide Reading Culture on the
Engagement of Middle School Students. RMLE Online: Research In Middle
Level Education, 35(2), 1-13.
Summary:
This article is about how
one school decided to make some changes to their focus for a school year.
With new administration, come new changes, and Parkdale Middle School, a
public school in California, did just that. The brand new principal decided
that the school’s most immediate and significant priority was to implement a
school-wide reading program.
Because of the heavy influence making reading a priority and the heavy reading focus, the school noticed an major culture shift over an extended period of time. Eventually, this shift of culture had its own impact on the student achievement.
Besides the specific school research project, this article also hits on very specific and detailed research, anecdotal reports, and in-depth interviews given to both students and teachers. Additionally, one point of the research is deeply tied to the cognitive abilities of middle school-aged students, exposing the dichotomy between the existing abilities and the potential abilities. These difference and gaps amongst a wide audience are what make motivating and working with this age group so challenging, requiring completely different adaptations by teachers who are required to continually motivate their students to be successful both in and out of the class. All of the research points to one thing: motivation matters.
Because of the heavy influence making reading a priority and the heavy reading focus, the school noticed an major culture shift over an extended period of time. Eventually, this shift of culture had its own impact on the student achievement.
Besides the specific school research project, this article also hits on very specific and detailed research, anecdotal reports, and in-depth interviews given to both students and teachers. Additionally, one point of the research is deeply tied to the cognitive abilities of middle school-aged students, exposing the dichotomy between the existing abilities and the potential abilities. These difference and gaps amongst a wide audience are what make motivating and working with this age group so challenging, requiring completely different adaptations by teachers who are required to continually motivate their students to be successful both in and out of the class. All of the research points to one thing: motivation matters.
This blog post addresses the important concept of student motivation and the challenges that go with it. I think all educators struggle with this on a daily basis of how to keep students motivated and therefore engaged. This seems to me like a perfect research question, “how to keep students motivated?” And it would be interesting to test different types of instructional strategies and see what the results are. This ties into the direction of my research of trying to test what instructional strategies yield the best results. I am hoping to test the difference between technology-rich instruction v more traditional. My assumption is that technology-rich instruction is more engaging but we will see. Thanks for reminding me of an important component in student achievement, motivation.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog on a very important topic. I like the easy to read format. I think that you might strengthen your blog by including some of the effective strategies mentioned in your articles. Mention some of those examples to add a little more content into your blog. Thanks for making such an informative blog on such an important topic.
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