I deal with discouraged students, and reluctant high school readers (as well as the functionally illiterate, the disabled, and ELL students). As an experiment last year I had the students write me a description of what rewards I could give them that would encourage them to read. Many of my students have never read books in school. They find ingenious ways to get out of reading, simply because they think reading is "too much work"- even though they go to some lengths to get out of it.
When I read what they had written, I was surprised at how little it took to reward them. I've always been a teacher to praise students for what is worthwhile in their work. I've never been false in my praise, but I am not stinting of it either. But students wanted tangible things. They wanted a Jamba Juice coupon, or 5 dollars, or a gift certificate for a book, or for me to take them to the movies. These were not tremendously expensive rewards, and looking in my gradebook for last year I see that all but 4 of my 32 kids earned a reward (in my second period class), by doing ALL their reading in class for the whole spring semester and bringing their book to school every day. In order to win the reward they had to remember their book every day (which I think was genuinely difficult for some of them- especially the students who were shifting homes during the week due to custody issues), and they had to read in absolute silence for the entire 1/2 hour of silent reading.
I was amazed at the effect a small reward had, and I think a good size reward could trigger higher graduation rates. It doesn't matter that we might think students *should* love reading and read just because it is good for them, or go to school because we have paid for it and it is there for them, and that they *should* do well because we expect them to, or it's important for their careers- because that doesn't get us maximum effect. I don't care what they *should* do, I want to know how I get my students from point A, where they are, to point B, where I want them to be. If a carrot works, I say give them the damn carrot. |
