Educational Leadership

dull and unrelated to their lives.

Too often, students believe they can learn what they need to know by simply listening in class and following procedures without referring to the textbook. A first step for teachers in increasing the perceived value of reading is to help students understand how reading the text benefits them across a range of situations.

For example, in one study, teachers asked students to write a paragraph about how the material they were learning in a section of their mathematics or psychology textbook was relevant in their personal lives. After students completed this task for five different textbook sections, their belief in the value of the book increased. They saw the relevance of the text, and their achievement in the course also increased (Hulleman, Godes, Hendriks, & Harackiewicz, 2010).

Effective teachers give students opportunities to apply the informational text they read to concrete classroom tasks—for example, they may ask students to read a two-page section of a textbook and then use the information they obtain to draw a diagram or to explain the topic to a classmate. Or students may read several texts to prepare for a team debate and then reflect on how the information they learned through their reading gave them the expertise they needed to perform well.

Social interaction around text has to be well managed to ensure that students listen to one another, but it is neither complex nor impossible. A wide range of interactive and collaborative arrangements can work in classrooms.

One simple way to support collabo-
ration is to arrange desks in pairs and
incorporate two-minute paired activities
into each lesson. For example, students
may read one page of text silently and
then briefly share with their partner
the most important point made on that
In all such interactions, effective
teachers provide appropriate degrees
of structure depending on class size,
as well as students’ cognitive skill and
comfort with social interaction. Some
students will do best when given a
simple, clear, concrete goal and a short
time to complete the task. For example,
the teacher may say, “Read this para-
graph silently and then reach agreement
within your group on the three most
important words in the paragraph. Be
prepared to defend your choices to the

When students struggle with reading the
textbook, teachers sometimes sideline the book.

Avoiding the textbook, however, is a mistake.

class. You have three minutes.” More advanced student groups can handle multiple goals, looser interaction requirements, and more choices about how to express the knowledge they learned from the text.

Use Social Motivation

Every middle school teacher is aware of the power of social dynamics for students in this age group. Yet teachers rarely tap into these social processes to strengthen informational text reading. Social motivation can inspire dedication to text reading if students want to impress their peers and not let them down by failing to fulfill their role in the group.

Effective middle school teachers set up frequent opportunities for collaboration to support students’ social motivation for reading informational text.

page. In these interactions, students clarify their own thinking by expressing their views to someone else; they may also be spurred to reflect on the key information from the text in a new way when they hear their partners interpret it. Thus, in a brief read-and-share activity, students become active learners and deepen their text comprehension— and enjoy the social interaction.

Another successful approach is collaborative reasoning, in which a group of students discusses a story or an informational text (Chinn, Anderson, & Waggoner, 2001). Students build on one another’s thoughts to explain the major theme of the text by successively adding key elements as they take turns contributing to the synthesis. This activity can help students become more skillful in interpreting complex text.

Some form of collaboration is possible in any classroom with any text. To be productive, collaborative or cooperative student work should be accountable, interactive, and text-based. For example, teachers may ask students to collaborate in writing a summary, drawing a graphic representation of a text, or building an argument for a position they will explain to others.

Give Students Choices

Middle school students need to feel in control of their world. Making simple choices is a rewarding form of control. Thus, teachers who give students choices in their informational reading help them develop an interest in reading.

We are not recommending that teachers let students choose whether to read a textbook or whether to complete assignments. Rather, we are suggesting that teachers provide more limited choices—which paragraph to emphasize in drawing conclusions, or which examples to read closely, for example. Students may be allowed to choose which portions to emphasize in a science chapter that includes more topics than the teacher can fully cover. Choice helps adolescents find materials relevant to them, which increases their delight in reading.