Student Engagement in Reading: What Intrinsically Motivates Students, What Does Not, and How to Facilitate Intrinsic Motivation for Reading in a Middle School English Classroom

Abstract

I examine middle school students' motivations for reading. In this paper I present the idea that if students are engaged in their reading, they will be motivated to work hard in order to understand the material and that teachers can successfully engage all middle school students in reading through intrinsic motivation. I describe my eleven-week student teaching experience in seventh and eighth grade English classrooms and the reading resistance that I confronted in these students. I frame the discussion with current educational research on reading motivation and explain the methods that I used in the classroom. Next, I describe which methods were successful and those that were ineffective in my particular classroom. I conclude with recommendations and the best methods to foster reading motivation in middle school students in and out of the classroom based on research and my student teaching experience.