Early Reading Motivation article

Me and My Reading Profile: A Tool for Assessing Early Reading Motivation

    

(portrait of my daughter, Tess, age 7, reading her favorite series Ivy and Bean)

        The article  "Me and My Reading Profile" by Marinek, Malloy, Gambrell, and Mazzoni (2015) discusses the value of assessing a young reader's motivation. It states that motivation plays as vital a role in reading achievement as other key skills (such as decoding and comprehension), yet motivation is rarely addressed in grades K-2. The authors go on to state that it is necessary to measure young students' interest in developmentally appropriate ways so that "literacy instruction can be designed with motivation in mind" (Marinak et. al. p. 52) and propose that they have created a useful tool with which to gauge students' interest in reading. Marinek et. al. (2015) state that "Without attention to reading motivation, some students may never reach their full reading potential" (p. 52).
       This article suggests that researchers have not considered young children capable of reporting their own motivation; however, if schools wait to address motivation, it may prove too late, as by third grade many children have begun to lose their motivation. Thus, Marinak et. al. (2015) developed the tool they call Me and My Reading Profile (MMRP) which they say "can be used by primary teachers to assess early reading motivation before significant declines can occur" (p. 53). This instrument consists of 20 multiple-choice questions, with half related to the student's "self-concept as a reader" and the other half "related to the value of reading" (p. 53). This test was given to 899 students in grades K-2 on the East Coast. It includes questions like "For me, learning to read is 1.) Easy  2.) Sort of hard  3.) Really hard" and "Do you have favorite books? 1.) Lots 2.) Some 3.) None" (p.54-55).
       Marinek et. al. (2015) state that the MMRP includes questions about aspects of reading that are socially mediated, such as reading aloud and discussing books with others. The authors believe that these social areas of literacy are as important for teachers to incorporate into their instruction as more traditional practices of phonics and so on, and they suggest that more research on literacy out loud is needed.
        The authors examine research-based suggestions for developing students' intrinsic motivation to read across the three sub-sets measure by MMRP: readers' self-concept, value of reading, and literacy out loud. In order to nurture a student's self-concept as a reader, Marinek et. al. (2015) state that teachers should give specific praise to individual students, and they give the following example: "'Matthew, I love that you used a word family to figure out that new word' is more instructionally supportive and motivating than 'Nice job, Matthew'" (p. 59). They also want teachers to promote the value of reading by allowing even the youngest readers to do authentic reading. To further promote the value of reading, they state that the youngest readers need to see their teachers (and the community at large) modeling a love of reading. Lastly, and perhaps most critically, Marinek et. al. challenge teachers to carefully incorporate literacy out loud techniques in their classroom instruction. They do not recommend, for instance, the common practice of pairing a strong reader with a weak reader for paired reading because this may harm the weaker reader's motivation; rather, it is best to pair readers of similar abilities (Martinek et. al. 2015). They suggest that all young students be given the opportunity to practice before they read aloud so as to preserve their motivation and confidence, and they further promote student choice in reading even in the youngest grades (Marinek et. al. 2015).
     Marinek et. al. (2015) close the article by encouraging action research in K-2 classrooms, stating that teachers should consider administering the MMRP to their students at the beginning of the year and then reassessing later in the year to measure reading motivation growth. It is clear that reader motivation is essential to helping students achieve their highest potential, and there is no reason to wait until third grade or beyond to begin to address the topic. Even kindergarteners have a sense of their motivation, and can be encouraged to strengthen their motivation in tandem with developing other reading skills such as phonemic awareness. Essentially, motivation itself is a reading skill that must be addressed through instructional techniques.

References

Marinak, B.A., Malloy, J.B., Gambrell, L. B., & Mazzoni, S.A. (2015). Me and My Reading Profile. Reading Teacher, 69(1), 51-62. doi: 10.1002/trtr.1362