Child Motivation in Literacy - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: CHILD MOTIVATION IN LITERACY Child Motivation in Literacy College: Introduction Pedagogy is an overarching concept, which refers to the calculated process of development cultivation within a given society and culture. It has three fundamental components from this viewpoint: the content or curriculum of what people are being taught; the methodology- manner in which teaching is conducted; and the techniques for children socialization in affective and cognitive skills’ repertoire needed for the successful functioning within the society, which education is meant to promote. The content of teaching or curriculum, may be designed in such a way that it encourages processes of learning (such as attention, memory, observation) as well as cognitive skills (classification, comparing and contrasting, reasoning), and the specific information’s acquisition such as names of alphabetical letters (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Teaching strategies or the methods employed in the curriculum’s implementation are the set interactions of individuals and materials, which teachers plan and use. They include the teaching styles, teaching role, as well as instructional modus operandi (Siraj-Blatchford, 1998). The third pedagogical aspect, which might be perceived as cognitive socialization is the role played by teachers in the early childhood settings. This is via their expectations, teaching strategies, curricular emphasis, in promotion of repertoire of affective and cognitive characteristics as well as the skills, which young children require in moving from the natal culture to the school culture and finally to the larger society’s culture. The young children are known of learning from everything they engage in since they are curious by nature and want making explorations and discoveries. In case such explorations and discoveries bring success or pleasure, they will desire learning more. Guthrie et al (2000) observed that children form attitudes concerning learning, which will last throughout their lifetime, during their early years. Thus, the children who achieve the appropriate sort of encouragement and support over these years end up being adventurous, creative learners across their lives. On the contrary, those who fail getting such interaction and support have more likelihood of having much different attitude concerning their learning in their later life. Children engage in numerous things basically because they have a desire of doing them. Choosing a shirt for wearing or a toy is the outcome of their intrinsic motivation in which the child decides on her choices as well as realises contentment from the choosing act as well as the opportunity of playing with her toy or wearing the shirt. Since such activity generates motivation, it is more self-sustaining provided the young child wants continuing with the activity. Young children also do some activities simply because adults direct them or even as efforts of pleasing another party, with such activities being extrinsically motivated. Whenever children are extrinsically motivated, reward comes from the child externally-someone else has to provide it and requires being continually given in order to ensure that the child remains motivated sufficiently to proceed with the activity (Oldfather & Dahl 1994). However, it is difficult for sustenance of the child’s extrinsic motivation due to this dependence upon some form of external force. Since the intrinsically motivated activities are more rewarding in as well as of themselves, children are exposed to more learning from this mode of activity and retain such learning more effectively (Lorch & van deb Broek, 1997). The intrinsically motivated children have the tendency of being more motivated within their own development and learning. In other words, children have more likelihood of learning and retaining information when they are intrinsically motivated, especially when they believe they are pleasing themselves. Their parents can capitalize on these senses of confidence through guiding their young children’s activities and play while still offering the children some range of effective and appropriate options to choose from. Such unstructured play and activities are essential components of the child’s learning, motivation, as well as development. The interest of this paper is examining the motivation of children in literacy with its aim being development of literature review pertaining children motivation in learning literacy. The literature review is conducted under some headings and the paper then gives a reflection of the findings and a comprehensive conclusion as a summary of the findings. Literature Review Researchers have established that motivation is multifaceted implying that within individuals; some kinds of motivation are stronger than others. Investigators in motivation research have primarily focused on performance orientation and task-mastery orientation. The people with mastery orientations seek improvement of their skills as well as accept new challenges (Ames, 1992). Such people are highly dedicated towards content understanding as well as learning flexible skills. The individuals with performance orientation try maximizing their ability’s favorable evaluations (Thorkildsen & Nicholls, 1998). On the other hand, performance orientation is perceived as extrinsic motivation, which is associated with use of the reading as well as desire of completing a task’s surface strategies instead of understanding or enjoying texts (Meece & Miller, 1999). Despite the two broad goal orientations in learning having implications for motivations, majority of the motivation researchers hold that task-mastery objective has more likelihood of fostering long-term engagement as well as learning compared to the performance goal, particularly when performance goal emphasizes the fear of failing (Maehr & Midgley, 1996; Ames, 1992). Another reading motivation aspect is self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1986), self-efficacy is the “people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances” (p. 391). In their research, Schunk and Zimmerman (1997) examined the research indicating that those students who have high self-efficacy levels perceive difficult tasks of reading as challenging and thus work diligently towards mastering them via their strategies of cognition productively. Besides, reading’s social motivation relates to the interpersonal and community activities of the children. Wentzel and Wigfield (1998); Morrow (1996) observed that the children who like sharing their books with their peers as well as participate in learners’ community responsibly have more likelihood of intrinsically being motivated as readers. In essence, “social motivation leads to increased amount of reading and high achievement in reading.” (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, p. 408) Guthrie et al (2000) observed that the students with high levels of intrinsic motivation, high self-efficacy, as well as task oriented are reasonably active readers as well as high achievers. Motivational processes form the foundation of coordinating cognitive goals as well as the reading strategies. For instance, if an individual is motivated intrinsically towards reading and believes in his/her ability to read, the individual will persevere in difficult texts’ reading as well as exert efforts towards resolution of conflicts as well as integrate text with his/her prior knowledge. Learners with high motivation tend to seek the books and reading materials, which are known of providing satisfaction. The various cognitive abilities required for finding books, avoiding distraction while reading, as well as assimilation of new ideas are well activated in case the text fulfills their internal objectives. This view agrees with both cognitive reading sciences and the acquisition of expertise-situated account (Lorch & van deb Broek, 1997) and the intrinsic motivation development (Deci, 1992). According to Guthrie and Wigfield (2000, p. 408), becoming an active, excellent reader entails motivational processes’ attunement with both language and cognitive processes in reading. Regrettably, reading motivation reduces as children go via school. One of the explanations to this focuses on the children’s capacity of understanding their own performance. They tend to become more sophisticated at the evaluative feedback processing they obtain while it leads to mounting realization of their lack of capability like others. According to Guthrie and Wigfield (2000), “a second explanation focuses on how instructional practices may contribute to a decline in some children’s motivation.” (p. 408) The practices, which focus on the social comparison between the children, little efforts of sparking the interests of children, as well as too much competition in various topics can facilitate declines in the mastery goals, competence beliefs, and intrinsic motivation, as well as increases in the performance and extrinsic motivation goals (Wigfield et al, 1996). The falls in the competence beliefs and interests concerning English language arts get pronounced as the children enter middle-schooling (Wigfield et al, 1991). According to Oldfather and McLaughlin (1993); Oldfather and Dahl (1994), the intrinsic motivation of students towards reading fell as the students went into their middle-schooling. Motivation change reflected the alterations in the conditions of their classroom. Children within these studies progressed from responsive, self-contained classroom, which honored the voices of the students and in situations in which formal grades failed being awarded to teacher-centered environments whereby the students had lesser chances for self-expression as well as little chance for negotiating their learning with their teachers. Such changes facilitated more focus on such extrinsic motivational goals as achievement of good grades among the students. The motivation aspects, which scholars have discussed are very distinct from numerous other students’ affective attributes. First, motivation and attitude are distinct things (McKenna et al 1995), referring to a task’s liking. For example, regarding reading, the students may report some high self-efficacy levels without liking reading. Oldfather and McLaughlin (1993) observed that some claim they are very good at reading though they don’t like it. Moreover, motivation is very distinct from interest that is typically associated with such topics as outer space, military history, or dinosaurs (Schiefele, 1996; Alexander et al 1996). The attributes of motivation in comparison are typically more general. A reader who is motivated intrinsically is disposed of reading a broad range of genres and topics. Finally, the beliefs of readers may also be differentiated from their motivation. Therefore, motivation can be differentiated from the other constructs, which are affectively oriented within the individual. Students’ Engagement in Learning and Its Importance: Students must be engaged and devoted to reading for success. Devotion to reading spreads across time, culminates into some valuable learning, as well as transfers to variety of circumstances. The devoted students have the intention of reading towards an understanding as their focus is on avoiding distractions and meanings. Such strategies as inferencing and self-monitoring are utilized with some little effort. Such readers exchange interpretations and ideas with their fellow students. Such students, who are motivated intrinsically towards reading for enjoyment and knowledge, are known as “engaged” readers. Scholars relate engagement to reading achievement very strongly. In the US, a national students sample of three ages nine, thirteen, and seventeen years revealed the more vastly engaged readers demonstrated higher achievement levels compared to the less engaged ones (Campell et al, 1997). In the cross-age comparisons, the thirteen-year-old students who had higher engagement of reading achieved at higher levels then the less engaged seventeen-year-old students. Reading engagement can also pay off for the low achievement credited to low income of families and educational background. Within this same data, the engaged readers from the low education/income families achieved than those from the high income/education backgrounds with less reading engagement at higher levels. Thus, engaged readers have more potential of overcoming the obstacles towards their achievement and become effective agents of their growth in reading (Guthrie et al, 2001). The engaged readers understands texts not only because they can do it, but also because they are motivated of doing it. According to Turner (1995) and Oldfather and Dahl (1994), the enjoyment of student in reading is portrayed as essential towards engaged reading for its sake. To Csikszentmihalyi (1991), engaged reading is a status of “flow” or total absorption. Cambourne (1995) views engagement as a multiple qualities’ merger, which involves holding a purpose, believing in an individual’s capability, seeking to understand, as well as intriguing responsibility for learning. Engaged readers are motivated, knowledgeable, socially interactive, and strategic. They are motivated towards reading for a number of personal goals. The engaged readers are also strategic in utilizing multiple approaches to understand a concept or an issue of study. They actively use knowledge in construction of new understandings from the texts and interact socially as an approach to literacy. They are also decision makers whose language and cognition as well as their affects play crucial roles in their practices of reading (Guthrie et al 1996). Analyses and Evaluation of Theoretical Insights and Arguments An essential assumption of the study according to Bloome (1986) and Dyson (1992) is that literacy qualifies as a social accomplishment in the lives of young and school age children and youths. Piaget’s (1973) constructivist psychological theories and von Glaserfeld’s (1984) radical constructivism inform this view. The views of Vygotskian (1978) are also core towards the theoretical frame and they emphasise the processes of interaction among the learners within the learning social context, as well as the more knowledgeable role played by others in facilitation of learning. Wood et al (1976) found that language lies at the core of literacy process. Thus, participants in cultures of classrooms construct collaborative understandings concerning the literacy nature, literature activity values, as well as the ways, which groups and individuals participate harmoniously in enactment of the curriculum. Reciprocally, via effective participation of such interactions, the individual students create a self-sense as readers, thinkers, as well as writers within each particular classroom’s culture. Johnston (1992) argues that such constructions are salient towards the development of students’ motivation towards literacy learning. Literacy learning’ intrinsic motivation is inextricably bound up, as conceptualized within this research, with the meaning construction processes among students. In sum, this paper argues that literacy is and will always be a social accomplishment and that root for literate activity motivation tend to be deeply embedded within literacy learning’s socio-cultural contexts, as well as the processes of transactions occurring within those particular contexts. All researches aimed at fostering a holistic classroom understanding for literacy learning motivation as well as the adaptive processes of learning for the students requires taking these processes of sociocultural analysis into consideration. However, this paper is limited to the classroom context’s consideration, and lacks an examination of the powerful family or community powerful influences upon literacy learning and motivation. A Vygotskian adaptive learning perspective was proposed by Rohrkemper (1989), which emphasizes the role played by the classroom interactions. Adaptive learning is defined as “the ability to take charge of frustration and maintain the intention to learn while enacting effective task strategies in the face of uncertainty - taking charge of one's motivation, emotion, and thinking" (Rohrkemper, 1989, p. 143). He emphasized the significance of interactions with the others and with tasks in working via difficult learning problems. According to Rohrkemper and Corno (1988), children are in a position of learning imperative strategies of adaptation when confronted with stressful circumstances. They argued that such adaptive strategies should and can be promoted deliberately within classrooms. As the students learn coping with boredom and stress as well as respond flexibly towards new conditions, they develop the ability of taking control of their learning individually. Cullen (1985) acknowledged four kinds of responses among the reactions of students against failure in school. These responses are strategy oriented, action oriented, anxiety oriented, and anger oriented responses. Some parallels to the four kinds of responses by Cullen were found in responses of the students to diverse motivational struggles. Cullen (1981) had found that the pessimistic emotions, which children felt in case they failed their first attempts of completing tasks interfered with their capability of using the meta-cognitive strategies. The Perception’s Role in Motivation: An understanding of social constructivist on literacy learning motivation not only encompasses the classroom’s natural domain but also incorporates the intrapersonal and interpersonal elements of the constructions of students concerning their processes of literacy. Research literature concerning motivation replicates the perceptions of individuals’ centrality in their motivational responses. The effectance motivation (White 1959), attribution theory (Weiner 1972), personal causation theory (deCharm 1984), control theory (Glasser 1986), as well as Deci and Ryan’s (1987) organismic integration and cognitive evaluation theories. Dweck (1975) illustrated perception’s salience in relation to the subjects of learned helplessness and found out that the attributions of failure of the students are due to their lack of efforts instead of ability, luck, or other variables and this may alleviate some levels of learned helplessness. Subjectivity reality (perception of students) within each of such motivational constructs is core towards the nature of their response towards particular circumstances. According to Eccles (1983), some circumstances in which the interpretations of individuals about events shape their actions more impressively compared to the events themselves. The significance of the perceptions of students is emphasized as “missing links” in the understanding of motivation and achievement among students (Weinstin 1989). Weinstein (1989) claims that “it is only recently that we have come to appreciate that children are active interpreters of the classroom reality, as of any social reality, and not simply passive recipients of instruction.” (p. 190) Thus, it cannot be assumed that the perceptions of adults and/or outsiders will automatically coincide with the students’ perceptions within the classroom cultures. Actually, ethnological interpretive studies’ analysis, which focus on the experiences of children in the school illustrates that what the students perceive as important in their classrooms have the likelihood of being very varied from what is seen by adults (LeCompte & Preissle, 1992). Even though a great attention’s deal has been paid towards the perceptions of students by the educational researchers, and especially by the motivational researchers, very little in detail interpretive research has been conducted on the motivation for literacy on students with focus of understanding the subjective experiences of students or their “insider” perceptions about the culture of classrooms. In their recent literature review, Erickson and Shultz (1992) established that “virtually no research has been done that places student experience at the center of attention." (p. 467). However, some few studies representing the academic perspectives of students, which are relevant towards the literacy motivation, have emerged in the recent past (Oldfather & McLaughlin, 1993). Gaining some effective access into these subjective views (realities of children) is an imperative aspect of the efforts of understanding the cognitive mediation incorporated into the motivational processes of children (Deci & Ryan, 1987). This agrees with the assertion of Bruner (1990) that: “A culturally sensitive psychology is and must be based not only upon what people actually do, but what they say they do and what they say caused them to do what they did. It is also concerned with what people say others did and why. And above all, it is concerned with what people say their worlds are like.” (p. 16) Implications for Child Motivation in Literacy Literacy assists individuals to function effectively within their societies. The present day civilization is grounded on reading and writing abilities of individuals. Lack of these fundamental skills makes one lack a comfortable fit into the society. In fact, most of the highly paying careers need some advanced literacy skills. Provision of fundamental as well as advanced literacy skills to the students is one of the key goals of the present day system of education. Although every child has a guarantee to education, not all people achieve these literacy skills and lack of motivation to the students plays a very big part towards this. Ogbu (2003) noted that some of the minorities have high illiteracy concentrations and thus decided on finding out why. Thus, he focused his study on Black Americans, particularly the ones in Stockton, California. In the area, most of the young persons blamed the system of school for their failures since the preceding generation had experienced discrimination. In fact, the preceding generations were forced to do double the work of their white counterparts for them to acquire same employment. Thus, these blacks were responsible of conveying hopelessness messages towards their children, through their continued complains against the unfairness of the system (Ogbu, 2003, p. 16). Young Stocktonians hear the media reports concerning intense job ceilings in their regions, which contribute to most of them giving up, especially after even a minor failure. Their lack of motivation contributes so much towards these students’ illiteracy. John Ogbu’s research is a clear illustration that something must be done regarding lack of motivation in literacy. One of the most effective mechanisms employed in provision of motivation to the students is rewarding them for reading. Newt Gingrich, the then House Speaker, put rewarding into practice through implementation of a program dubbed “Learning by Earning.” He paid some students 2 dollars in a classroom in Washington D.C. for reading as well as answering some queries about a book. In emphasis of his initiative, Gingrich once informed reporters that, “We do everything we can to get our kids to read. The poorest children in America are having their futures stolen by illiteracy." (Wilson, 1996, p. 164) He also claims that payment of students illustrates the importance of learning to read. Some identical programs offering rewards to students have been implemented in other places to ensure that students are highly motivated to read. Unfortunately, rewards do not qualify as the most effective means of motivating the students to read since kids should be motivated to read the contents of the book as opposed to their desire for money. Thus, there are numerous means of motivating kids towards a reading culture without having to pay them (Seelye, 2001). Looking at rewarding system as a motivator for learning for literacy, scholars have identified some other drawbacks. There must be someone to pay the students in order for them to read and this would be very expensive. In addition, the students would only engage in reading if they fell they need the money being offered. In case the student felt that he/she had adequate money when assigned a book for reading, then there would be no more motivation. Therefore, rewards are generally poor means of motivating students. In essence, offer of rewards has the potential of eliciting temporary compliance (Kohn 1999). Students who have been promised some rewards after reading have been given reasons for stopping if there were no longer any rewards to be gained. Such children lack any reason to engage in reading for pleasure because there lacks a reward for doing so. The students who grow up with promises of rewards have the tendency of reading worse compared to the ones who have not. An explanation for this could be that such rewards cause individuals to lose the needed interest in whatever they got rewards for doing. Due to this Alfie Kohn (1999) argues that the motivation methods needs a reevaluation and he divides motivation into 2 classes: extrinsic and intrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is then defined as the genuine interest for completing tasks while extrinsic motivation is the desire of completing tasks in order to attain something else. Giving the students a safe and caring community whereby they can freely discover as well as create, and a considerable degree of choice concerning all the things they learn can accomplish intrinsic motivation in students. Vividly, motivation requires being genuine, in that desire of reading and writing must avoid being brought about by the diverse modes of bribery, but instead by allowing children to pick the books that interests them. Simply put, motivation fails if it is brought about through giving of bribes and rewards. Moreover, rewards are only a temporary form of motivation since the desire of students is achieving the rewards as opposed to put their best in completion of tasks. Creativity is also limited by extrinsic motivation since it often demands that students devote more of their time into tasks. This perspective is more applicable to the writing literacy’s aspect (Wilson, 1996). Traditionally, the parents- particularly the mother- had the responsibility of motivating their children (students) to read (Deci & Ryan, 1987). The structure and responsibility of the family has changed in the course of the last 20 years with a notable dramatic increase in single-parent households as well as two-working parents households. For most part, the mothers have become no longer available to ensure they guide the study habits as well as provide motivation to their children as was in the traditional society. Schools have in fact blamed single parents and mothers for failure of being sufficiently involved or valuing education. The attempted solution by schools generally focus on the ways of helping or even forcing the dual-earner or single parent families towards conforming to expectations of having the ability of constantly supervising the learning progress of their children. It is unfortunate that the only means in which the single parents or working mothers can realize this is through limiting their involvement within the labor markets. However, this has proven as being an unrealistic option and thus calls for venture into discovery of another viable solution. Reflection on School experience Motivation of students is affected by internal as well as external factors, which can start, intensify, sustain, or even discourage behavior. The internal factors consist of the characteristics and dispositions, which individual students bring along to their learning. These include such things as their responsibility for learning, interests, values, perceived ability, as well as efforts. For instance, the teachers must understand whether students are fearful or confident when approaching new tasks of learning, whether they feel they are in control of various factors responsible of achievement of success, or whether they attribute their success to luck. The beliefs of students regarding their ability of learning are shaped by the experiences and messages at school, home, as well as within the larger society. Parents and teachers should subtly communicate low expectations as well as incorporate effective school practices like tracking, curriculum, or ability grouping, which is not challenging. The high and achievable expectations conversely convey messages that all the students have the potential of achieving success. This study agrees with Turner and Paris (1995) that the most reliable pointer of motivation among students for their literacy learning does not entail the mode of reading program, which districts follow but rather the actual daily work tasks provided by teachers in their classrooms. It is imperative for both teachers and parents to understand the diverse external factors that can be affect motivation in learning. Such key factors include the variables within the environment as well as learning conditions, which support, trigger, or even change the motivation of students. Certain kinds of schooling practices have the potential of hindering or promoting motivation. Ainley (2004) identified such schooling practices as features of peer groups, classrooms, instructional practices, as well as tasks. For instance, challenging, relevant instruction assists in students’ engagement. Schools can also increase motivation through establishing positive connections to some other people like role models and mentors. With primary education particularly, teachers need to play an imperative role in students’ motivation. This should however, not exclude the parents but they should be active players whenever they are available. The teachers need to understand that the parents are not always in a position of providing educational supervision, particularly when assigning homework to students. Teachers should assign homework as reinforcement for what the students have learned but should avoiding making them as a platform of teaching new material. In addition, the parents should have opportunities of participating in the education of their children instead of being blamed or chastised when they fail taking part in their education (Deci & Ryan, 1987). As students get older, they should be allowed assuming the responsibility of motivating themselves as another option. The systems of schooling can assist students in self-motivation through empowering them to make strategic choices about their curriculum. Three notable benefits are conspicuous towards this practice: it enhances the development of sense of responsibility among the students, it allows students to challenge themselves by selecting courses at their level, and it allows them to develop some independence (Dultz, 2005). Such a principle could be applied towards literacy. If students in reading classes were allowed occasionally to select what they read, then they will have more motivation for reading as opposed to just reading what their seniors hand to them. Some parameters that students come across confine the decisions made by students concerning their education without at first appearing to do it and this often leads to lack of motivation as well as unhappiness on the students’ part. For effective motivation to learning, students must select their independent subject matters for learning as well as for formulation of their own procedure for learning. The procedure for learning encompasses several things like which books individuals will read as well as which studying assistances they will choose. It also incorporates what thoughts they will think, the persons to learn from, the studying methods they will develop, the learning objectives they will learn from, the studying methods they will develop, as well as the learning objectives they will assign themselves. When the students are permitted to select their reading resources, they have the freedom of exploring their interests as well as equipped with the ability of motivating themselves towards learning. Motivation of students directly affects their ability of reading and learning. Without motivation, the students will have more difficulty in reading and learning. Offering rewards to promote the desire of reading is a common misconception, which simply raises the desire for reward. Once the students achieve the reward, they have no reason for continuing with reading. Thus, the most effective method of motivating students is promoting their genuine reading interests. This could be achieved by giving the students scholarly works and/or author’s lists to choose from. However, it is not constantly possible for students to pick readings, which are of no interest to them though this ought to be the case when possible. Traditionally, mothers have had the responsibility of motivating students (their children) as well as overseeing their studies. The changes in traditional structure of the family do not allow mothers in the present day to supervise the education of their children always. Thus, teachers must assist the students towards self-motivation through allowing them more choices concerning their education. Proper motivation of students fosters the ease of literacy among them. Conclusion Through the eyes of children, the world appears as an awesome place and thus children should be allowed to discover as well as explore their world. Every corner has experiences lying in wait to excite as well s surprise the young growing minds of children and all they require is some little direction and large quantities of freedom. Parents and teachers should not necessarily reward and praise their children for their actions in their attempts of controlling the environment. Instead, they should allow the feelings of achievement gained from outcomes of those actions as enough reward. Provision of excessive rewards and praise is not necessary and can be actually harmful towards the motivation of children as well as their learning desire. In addition, the attitudes and habits towards learning should be well established in the early years of children to ensure that their future learning will be smooth and viable. 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