Engaging Children to be Readers — What is the Purpose, The Why? Part 4
“Content without purpose is only trivia!” — Steve Revington
In yesterday’s post I honed in on the five ingredients necessary for learning to happen in regard to reading. I discussed what happens when students lack confidence in themselves and their ability and the devastating effect it can have.
Today we’re going to take a look at the ingredient of purpose or relevance and how this impacts students who want to succeed and can succeed but still fail.
One thing you will notice about me as an educator is I like to keep things simple, easy and relevant. My goal is to streamline tasks so it saves time and to explain things in easy to understand bite size pieces. There are three important pieces that need to be addressed in every lesson: The What, They How and The Why. The diagram below shows how they are interrelated.
The What — What is the intended student learning? What is being taught?
The How — How will the lesson be delivered, modeled or explained to promote rigorous thinking and learning?
The Why — Why is this content relevant to the student? What is the purpose?
The why of lesson design is often overlooked or missing. I vividly remember when I was in junior high, now middle school, students asking all the time, why do we have to do this?, especially in Algebra class. It is important to state the purpose upfront so students clearly understand why this is important. Students need to understand “the why” so they value commiting time and energy to the task. They want to know that there will be a pay off in the end. That this will benefit them in the long run. Keep in mind, stating the purpose is important even for our youngest learners. We have to make sure that the work we are asking students to dive into has meaning for them. This will help them see the importance of the learning and put forth the necessary effort.
I want to take this one step further and discuss the impact for reading. Since this is ultimately about student reading engagement. How does “the why” relate? As readers, we are often faced with reading material that we have to read, not because it is of interest to us. This is what happens often in school and frequently for very young readers due to limited high interest leveled readers. They are handed a book that is not relevant to them at all. It is of low interest and certainly not engaging text, because it is at “their instructional reading level” and they are expected to be excited and read it. Not only are they to read it once, teachers want them to put it in the their book box and read it over and over. This definitely kills reading enjoyment for new readers. This has been a point of frustration for me as a literacy expert my whole career why there is little investment in high interest, engaging leveled text for beginning readers. When I say beginning readers I am speaking to all beginning readers. Even the English language learner that is learning to read as a middle school student. There is very little text available for them. How defeating to be handed a book intended for a kindergarten or first grade student and expect a middle school student to feel excited about reading this book. This actually is detrimental to their learning journey and starts eroding their confidence very quickly.
Students who want to succeed and can succeed have to know the purpose behind the learning. They have to want to pick up the book and read it. That is the ultimate goal! How do we get students to read and enjoy it? If they don’t they will fail!
Please take a moment to click this link and share your information with me. I would LOVE to hear from you.
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass
The joy is in the journey!
Blessings and Peace,,
Mary
