by Sarah Bogdanovitch

Introduction

Learning to read is difficult and to do so children must be motivated to learn.  Motivation to read is an important factor that determines reading habits that contribute to reading skill, such as the amount of time spent on reading activities, the variety of different genres a child engages with, and if the child reads at home as well as in school.¹ Research indicates that differences in motivation to read between boys and girls appear during the school years and likely play a role in the gender gap found in reading achievement.^2,3,4,5,6

Subject

Motivation is a complex construct best described as a collection of individual characteristics. Research has identified different types of motivation that can be placed into three categories.  With examples specific to reading, these categories are (1) goal orientation, or what a child hopes to gain from reading (e.g. intrinsic goals, such as to gain pleasure from the activity or to master a reading task, or extrinsic goals, such as to gain positive external feedback for reading); (2) self-competence beliefs (whether a child thinks they will succeed at a reading task or not); and (3) social and environmental aspects of motivation (e.g. whether or not reading is perceived to be valuable in their home or classroom).⁷ According to this research, it is not accurate to describe a child as either highly or poorly motivated to read; rather, scientists describe the child’s motivational profile. Researchers have studied the ways that different types of motivation and motivational profiles impact the development of reading skill.^8,9,10

Problems

For intervention targeting motivation to read to be effective, it is critical to understand when and how motivation for reading develops—as well as when a gender difference in motivation to read emerges. Most studies use questionnaires to measure motivation. These are typically inappropriate for use with preschool and early school-aged children, making this population particularly difficult to study in terms of motivation.

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