Motivation
Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try. Motivation often varies depending on the setting, the people involved, the task, and the situation. Thankfully, there are specific things parents and teachers can do to spark students' curiosity and motivate them toward success. Read on to find out more!
Motivation: The Key to Academic Success
Too many factors can lessen a student's motivation: fear of failure, lack of challenge, and lack of meaning, to name a few. But for some students, small efforts at home can have big payoffs toward supporting and motivating a struggling learner. These include building on the student's strengths, providing clear directions and feedback, and remembering to reinforce the behavior you want. Find out other ways parents can help support their learner.
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Make Your Passions Public!
That's one of the ideas for nurturing the motivation to read from Dr. Linda Gambrell, an expert on student motivation. Using research findings as her base, Gambrell and colleagues offer several recommendations to teachers and parents. Some are as simple as honoring a book by placing it in a special basket or bringing lots of different types of reading material into the classroom and home. Read more to find out a few simple but transformative suggestions that can cultivate the love of reading in your classroom!
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Sometimes I Just Get All Scribbly: Motivating the Child with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
Often, there's a mismatch between the skills and abilities required to succeed in a classroom and the deficits and weaknesses inherent in ADD. Rick Lavoie, a national expert on children with LD and ADD, offers specific teaching strategies that may foster a child's motivation in the classroom. Lavoie's suggestions include using a cue or private signal that you can send to a child, instituting a "study buddy" to help with organization and preparation, and avoiding overloading the child with information and instructions.
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Teacher Appreciation Week Resources
One great teacher can make all the difference. Teachers may not always see the impact of their work on kids and families, but the testimonies we received from parents, teachers, and students themselves are proof that good teaching empowers students to learn and develop character.
Read these notes for inspiration — then send an e-card to a teacher who has made a difference in your life.
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May Is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month
May is a month to pay tribute to the generations of Asian and Pacific Islanders who have enriched America's history and are instrumental in its future success.
For more information, visit the Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month website.
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Featured Partner: National Education Association (NEA)
The National Education Association is the nation's largest professional employee organization, representing 3.2 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers. To focus the country's attention on how important it is to motivate children to read, NEA launched the Read Across America program in 1997. This nationwide reading celebration takes place each year on March 2, the birthday of beloved children's author Dr. Seuss. NEA's Read Across America also provides NEA members, parents, caregivers, and children the resources and activities they need to keep reading on the calendar 365 days a year.
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Advice: What do you do when a child just gives up?
I have a very caring boy with a big self-esteem problem. He only puts out half effort in school and in sports, due to deciding ahead of time that he does not fit in or cannot do it. I need a positive way of handling this with him.
Dr. Larry Silver answers: Act quickly before you lose him. You must clarify why your son is so discouraged that he appears to have given up. If he has ADHD and a learning disability and if he has not been fully treated for one or both of these serious disabilities, the behaviors and attitudes you see may be a result of his feelings of frustration and failure. His poor self-image and low self-esteem concern me as well.
Read the rest of his answer…
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Glossary Term: Self-advocacy
Self-advocacy
The development of specific skills and understandings that enable children and adults to explain their specific learning disabilities to others and cope positively with the attitudes of peers, parents, teachers, and employers.
To learn more about self-advocacy, see Self-Advocacy: A Valuable Skill for Your Teenager with LD.
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Featured Resource for Teachers: Primary Sources
Teachers, put the power of primary sources to work in the classroom. Browse ready-to-use lesson plans, student activities, collection guides, and research aids all geared toward the celebration of Asian-Pacific American Heritage month. Resources come from the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the National Gallery of Art, and more!
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