Annotated Bibliography
Altchuler, S., & Chai, H. (2019). "Getting Unstuck": Reluctant readers and the impact of visualization strategies. Reading Improvement, 56(4).
This article describes some of the barriers encountered by reluctant readers including motivation, self-perception, negative attitudes toward reading, belief that reading isn’t important, and not knowing how to remain engaged throughout reading. The authors discuss the importance of intrinsic motivation in engagement and the limitations of extrinsic rewards in cultivating motivation to read. Lastly, this article outlines four specific visualization strategies that can support struggling readers, including book trailers, OMP strategy, INSERT strategy and photographs of the mind, which they describe in detail.
Farrington, C. A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T. S., Johnson, D. W., & Beechum, N. O. (2012). Teaching Adolescents to Become Learners: The Role of Noncognitive Factors in Shaping School Performance--A Critical Literature Review. Consortium on Chicago School Research. 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.
This article focuses on how noncognitive factors including strategies, attitudes, and behaviors, affect adolescent student performance, as measured by grades, and future college and career success. The authors claim that noncognitive factors can account for disparities of academic outcomes across racial, ethnic and gender lines. The authors organize noncognitive factors into five broad categories: academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic mindsets, learning strategies, and social skills. They define each of the categories in depth and provide a review of the current research surrounding each of these areas. Furthermore, they discuss the interplay between these factors and with classroom and socio-cultural contexts.
Price-Mitchell, M. (2015, April 7). Metacognition: Nurturing Self-Awareness in the Classroom. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/8-pathways-metacognition-in-classroom-marilyn-price-mitchell
The article discusses the importance of self-awareness and metacognition for student academic and life-long success. The author focuses on specific strategies that teachers can implement in the classroom in order to help build metacognitive skills in students.
Toshalis, E., & Nakkula, M. (2012). Motivation, engagement, and student voice. Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review, 78(1), 1-20. https://studentsatthecenterhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Motivation-Engagement-Student-Voice-Students-at-the-Center-1.pdf
This article centers around three research questions: “How might I understand the variety of my students' motivations to learn and how might I address each of their different ways of engaging in class?” “Conversely, how should I understand my students occasional lack of motivation and academic engagement?” Finally, “Given the diversity of students in my classroom and the unique ways each one learns, how can I provide a range of growth opportunities that motivate and engage my students both collectively and individually.”
This article goes on to discuss how students' home contexts can determine whether they arrive at school as pre-motivated or reluctant learners and that there is no single fix to solve the problems of disengagement and lack of motivation. The researchers lay out three and discuss the main factors that contribute to student motivation: competence, autonomy and relatedness. Furthermore, they also discuss how societal stereotypes related to a student’s identity markers (race, gender, immigration status, etc.) can impact their performance in academic settings.
Tovani, C. (2004). Do I really have to teach reading?: Content comprehension, grades 6-12. Stenhouse Publishers. (pp. 101-115)
The author begins the chapter by offering a strategy to help adolescent students understand how reading is relevant and important to their lives. She tells students to ask themselves, “what’s in this for me?” This pushes students to see the connections between what they are doing in class, and how it can benefit them in the long run. This article noted that students feel far more engaged when they feel the content and skills being taught have relevance to their lives. When students understand the purpose, they are more motivated to engage. Another way that she suggests building relevance for students is by learning about them through conversation calendars, which in turn can be used to “help them see how the work we are doing in class is purposeful and connects to their lives” (106).
Tovani notes that there are many different ways to show thinking, such as annotating a text, keeping a reading response log, or having a one-on-one conversation with the teacher or a fellow student, among others. Tovani states that you need to be “explicit about what they need to know,” (102). Knowing exactly what the learning target is will help students understand how they can demonstrate that they have met it.
Toward the end of the article, Tovani states that “if the way they are asked to demonstrate knowledge is too cumbersome, they will abandon the task” (115). Some of the strategies Tovani offers in this chapter include visualization, partner reading, asking the teacher questions, rereading specific parts, and asking questions.
Tovani, C. (2000). I read it, but I don't get it: Comprehension strategies for adolescent readers. Stenhouse Publishers.
In this book, Cris Tovani begins by describing her experience working with adolescent students who struggle with reading and reading comprehension. She discusses common reasons why struggling readers are unable or unmotivated to comprehend the reading being assigned to them in their high school classes, including their prior experiences with reading, their own perceptions of their abilities, lack of practical strategies, and the feeling that reading is irrelevant to their lives.
She goes on to describe the common misperception that reading is simply sounding out words. and instead argues that reading is a complex thinking process. She states that her students often expect the meaning of a text to simply arrive, as if by magic, as they are reading, and that when it doesn’t they become frustrated and lose motivation. The meaning-making process can be scaffolded and supported through providing background knowledge prior to reading a text and choosing texts that students are interested in. Reading comprehension strategies also need to be modeled and explicitly taught to students. High school teachers should be teaching students how to ask questions, make connections, and draw conclusions about the text. They should be showing them how to identify the most important information in a text, and asking them to synthesize what they read.
This article describes some of the barriers encountered by reluctant readers including motivation, self-perception, negative attitudes toward reading, belief that reading isn’t important, and not knowing how to remain engaged throughout reading. The authors discuss the importance of intrinsic motivation in engagement and the limitations of extrinsic rewards in cultivating motivation to read. Lastly, this article outlines four specific visualization strategies that can support struggling readers, including book trailers, OMP strategy, INSERT strategy and photographs of the mind, which they describe in detail.
Farrington, C. A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T. S., Johnson, D. W., & Beechum, N. O. (2012). Teaching Adolescents to Become Learners: The Role of Noncognitive Factors in Shaping School Performance--A Critical Literature Review. Consortium on Chicago School Research. 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.
This article focuses on how noncognitive factors including strategies, attitudes, and behaviors, affect adolescent student performance, as measured by grades, and future college and career success. The authors claim that noncognitive factors can account for disparities of academic outcomes across racial, ethnic and gender lines. The authors organize noncognitive factors into five broad categories: academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic mindsets, learning strategies, and social skills. They define each of the categories in depth and provide a review of the current research surrounding each of these areas. Furthermore, they discuss the interplay between these factors and with classroom and socio-cultural contexts.
Price-Mitchell, M. (2015, April 7). Metacognition: Nurturing Self-Awareness in the Classroom. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/8-pathways-metacognition-in-classroom-marilyn-price-mitchell
The article discusses the importance of self-awareness and metacognition for student academic and life-long success. The author focuses on specific strategies that teachers can implement in the classroom in order to help build metacognitive skills in students.
Toshalis, E., & Nakkula, M. (2012). Motivation, engagement, and student voice. Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review, 78(1), 1-20. https://studentsatthecenterhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Motivation-Engagement-Student-Voice-Students-at-the-Center-1.pdf
This article centers around three research questions: “How might I understand the variety of my students' motivations to learn and how might I address each of their different ways of engaging in class?” “Conversely, how should I understand my students occasional lack of motivation and academic engagement?” Finally, “Given the diversity of students in my classroom and the unique ways each one learns, how can I provide a range of growth opportunities that motivate and engage my students both collectively and individually.”
This article goes on to discuss how students' home contexts can determine whether they arrive at school as pre-motivated or reluctant learners and that there is no single fix to solve the problems of disengagement and lack of motivation. The researchers lay out three and discuss the main factors that contribute to student motivation: competence, autonomy and relatedness. Furthermore, they also discuss how societal stereotypes related to a student’s identity markers (race, gender, immigration status, etc.) can impact their performance in academic settings.
Tovani, C. (2004). Do I really have to teach reading?: Content comprehension, grades 6-12. Stenhouse Publishers. (pp. 101-115)
The author begins the chapter by offering a strategy to help adolescent students understand how reading is relevant and important to their lives. She tells students to ask themselves, “what’s in this for me?” This pushes students to see the connections between what they are doing in class, and how it can benefit them in the long run. This article noted that students feel far more engaged when they feel the content and skills being taught have relevance to their lives. When students understand the purpose, they are more motivated to engage. Another way that she suggests building relevance for students is by learning about them through conversation calendars, which in turn can be used to “help them see how the work we are doing in class is purposeful and connects to their lives” (106).
Tovani notes that there are many different ways to show thinking, such as annotating a text, keeping a reading response log, or having a one-on-one conversation with the teacher or a fellow student, among others. Tovani states that you need to be “explicit about what they need to know,” (102). Knowing exactly what the learning target is will help students understand how they can demonstrate that they have met it.
Toward the end of the article, Tovani states that “if the way they are asked to demonstrate knowledge is too cumbersome, they will abandon the task” (115). Some of the strategies Tovani offers in this chapter include visualization, partner reading, asking the teacher questions, rereading specific parts, and asking questions.
Tovani, C. (2000). I read it, but I don't get it: Comprehension strategies for adolescent readers. Stenhouse Publishers.
In this book, Cris Tovani begins by describing her experience working with adolescent students who struggle with reading and reading comprehension. She discusses common reasons why struggling readers are unable or unmotivated to comprehend the reading being assigned to them in their high school classes, including their prior experiences with reading, their own perceptions of their abilities, lack of practical strategies, and the feeling that reading is irrelevant to their lives.
She goes on to describe the common misperception that reading is simply sounding out words. and instead argues that reading is a complex thinking process. She states that her students often expect the meaning of a text to simply arrive, as if by magic, as they are reading, and that when it doesn’t they become frustrated and lose motivation. The meaning-making process can be scaffolded and supported through providing background knowledge prior to reading a text and choosing texts that students are interested in. Reading comprehension strategies also need to be modeled and explicitly taught to students. High school teachers should be teaching students how to ask questions, make connections, and draw conclusions about the text. They should be showing them how to identify the most important information in a text, and asking them to synthesize what they read.