Module 8

The article I am critiquing is titled Influences of stimulating tasks on reading motivation and comprehension. It was written by Pedro Barbosa, John Guthrie, Nicole Humenick, Kathleen Perencevick, Ana Taboada, and Allan Wigfield. It was published in The Journal of Education Research in March 2006. It is about the effects of reading motivation. The study was done on children in grades three through five. The researchers were not surprised that motivation in reading does affect students’ reading comprehension. They stated that they only studied the motivation of reading, not the motivation of any other subject including math, science, social studies, or language. I was not shocked by these findings either. It is common sense that when students are motivated, they will rise higher and achieve more regardless of the subject. They would have found out the same thing if they would have studied the affects of motivation in science or any other subject. They probally would have found out the same in physical education as well. The affects of not motivating children would probally have the opposite affect on them. They would not achieve as well. Their scores on comprehension and standardized tests would drop tremendously. The reachers have to be somewhat of a coach. They need to cheer their class on and encourage them to try their best in all that they do. When they do try their best we need to praise them even if it is not the outcome that we want. This praise will push them to continue to try and not give up. That is exactly what we want. This is the reward that keep teachers going. The article also states that motivation for reading predicts student achievement on standardized tests and school grades. Again, motivation and grades go hand in hand. The more motivation a child receives, the higher they achieve in tests and grades. What should teachers get out of this article? They should learn that they need to motivate, motivate, and motivate some more. Do not put children down or make them feel bad about their accomplishments. That will only make things worse. In order to keep your students working hard, give them some praise. Have a reward time for when they try their best. Let them have some partner reading time and game time. Do whatever it takes to motivate your class.

Module 6

For the first activity, I would pair my students up for peer reading. There would be one strong reader and one weak reader in each pair. After modeling how to change your voice when reading, they would paractice changing their voices at the appropriate places. They would help their partner and tell them when they made a mistake.
I would have my students interview teachers throughout the school I will have three set questions for them to ask about the layout of the library. They would have to come up with one more question. They would work in pairs and no group would be assigned the same teacher. Afterwards, we would discuss our answers.
After discussing made up stories, I would have my students make up their own story and write them down. We would take turn sharing our stories with the class and talk about if any of them had happened to the class.

Module 11

I would develop a 21st Century Information Skills Program for my library media center. I would set up a blog for students and teachers. I would read the students a story when they come into the library for a lesson. On their own time or time their teacher allows them, they would be able to go onto the blog site. I would already have the ending of the book set up. They would have an opportunity to change the ending of the story. This would require them to follow an inquiry-based process, use strategies to draw conclusions, use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways others can view, and use social networks and information tools to gather and share information. This activity would cover all four of the 21st Century Standards. When the classes came back to the library, I would give them an opportunity to share their ending and explain why they wrote it.

Module 7

I would choose an author that the children enjoy reading such as Shel Silverstein. We would read several of his poems and books. I would also share his information about his life so the children can relate to him and his experiences. We would then write about why he wrote about the things that he did.
We would read two or three books about lighthouses. After reading all the books, we would make a chart showing how they are alike and how they are different. We may carry it on and talk about what could really happen in the stories and what could not happen.
Celebrations would be a good and interesting theme to study. I would choose several books about celebrations. Before reading them, we would look at the cover and chart how we think the books will be alike and how they will be different. We would then read the books to see if we were right.