Linda Gambrell identified six characteristics of classroom cultures that foster reading motivation for most students.
1) The teacher as an explicit reading model
2) A book-rich classroom environment
3) Opportunities for choice
4) Opportunities to interact socially with others
5) Opportunities to become familiar with lots of books
6) Appropriate reading-related incentives.
Some of these characteristics have their match in behaviors that have been found to motivate learning. All of these processes are worthy of consideration for teachers who want to build motivation in their classroom.
1) The teacher as an explicit reading model. Teachers who serve as passionate models of reading and writing are inspired about their own literacy. Ones who explicitly engage in and encourage related activities help many students develop a personal interest in literate behaviors.
2) A book-rich classroom environment. Such a climate helps situational interest develop into personal interest. Reading Rainbow offers a strategy description, an overview of the research, and examples.
3) Opportunities for choice. Literature circles, silent sustained reading, writing workshop, and fluency-building activities all present students with opportunities to make choices in their literacy learning. Students who make and prefer their own choices are intrinsically motivated to read and write.
4) Opportunities to interact socially with others. Student-talking is the most frequently observed and corrected misbehavior in intermediate classrooms. Thus, it makes sense for an instructional format to promote conversation. Naturally, this will appeal to many students. One of my favorites is Kagan Publishing's Think Pair Share.
5) Opportunities to become familiar with lots of books. It is interesting to note that the more students know about books, the more they feel motivated to read books. Students who have difficulty with reading and writing have a wealth of opportunities to become familiar with lots of books when all of the previously discussed characteristics of classrooms are provided.
6) Appropriate reading-related incentives. When the reward is reading related, students read so they can read more. Studies have found that when students were rewarded with a book for reading, they did not name the book as what they liked best about the program. Instead, they named the reading activities.
I recommend Creating Classrooms for Authors and Inquirers, by Carolyn Burke, Jerome Harste and Kathy Short. Written years before the Common Core, the ideas in this book will help teachers meet its standards:
How do you set up supportive classrooms in which children can become real readers, writers, and inquirers? Can it be done every day, across the curriculum? ... The authors offer more ideas and rich descriptions of how their curriculum moved from writing and reading to include inquiry.