Lorilynn Brandt

Research shows a general declining trend in reading motivation as students progress through their schooling experience. This qualitative study examines how adjusting practices of rewarding reading can improve reading motivation among students. Teachers are trained in the principles of motivation and introduced to the proximal reward theory (Gambrell, 1996). They are then challenged to come up with ideas for proximal rewards and implement them appropriately for their classrooms, replacing prior incentives of food and prizes. Qualitative data are collected through classroom observations, interviews, and teacher journaling. Outcomes showed teachers' ability to plan and implement appropriate approximal rewards increased as did the teachers' confidence in their effectiveness, while students also increased in motivation for reading tasks.

This quasi-experimental study aimed to examine content-area literacy instruction in comparison to a science-infused literacy instruction (SILI) to determine how these two approaches influenced 2nd grade students’ ability to read and write science informational text and the students’ attitude and motivation towards reading. After professional development, five teachers taught their classes twelve thematic lessons designed using either the content-area literacy (N = 37) or the SILI (N = 40) instruction to 2nd grade students. Teachers in both groups implemented thematic lessons that taught the life cycle of plants and included interactive read-alouds, graphic organizers, watching time lapse videos of plant growth, and reading digital texts independently and in small groups to support students in building the content knowledge and vocabulary necessary to write science informational texts. Students in the SILI group also participated in hands-on science activities including planting seeds and documenting plant growth, exploring the parts of a live basil plant, and taking walks outdoors to observe plants at various stages of the plant life cycle. Lessons took place over four weeks to assist students in acquiring science content knowledge so as to transfer this knowledge into science informational texts and to determine the influence of both instructional approaches on reading comprehension and reading attitude and motivation. Findings resulted in the content-area literacy instruction producing higher and statistically significant reading comprehension and writing rubric scores than the SILI group with medium effect sizes reported. The SILI group produced higher reading attitude and motivation scores, but these results were not statistically significant. Implications for both early childhood science and literacy classroom instruction as well as multiple implications for future research are discussed.