How to Motivate Difficult Students to Write

Reading and writing skills go hand-in-hand. The more you read, the better you get at it. The more you write the better you get at it. But what happens when students are not motivated to read and write? What is a teacher to do? We have these state tests that are right around the corner.

Image courtesy of Pixabay and PowerPoint.

When students are unable to read on grade-level, teaching and learning can be challenging. Some teachers are unsure of what to do to provide access to those students. Some students act out and exhibit difficult behaviors for teachers to manage because they do not want their peers to know that they are inept.

In this blog post, I am being interviewed by Mrs. Keena Flournoy White of Knowledge Defines the Future. In the video below, we discuss How to Motivate Difficult Students to Write.

Image courtesy of Pixabay and PowerPoint.

To gear you up on what you are about to view, here are the questions we discuss in the video:

1) How do you encourage yourself when your students aren’t where you think they should be? How can parents encourage their children to make their thinking visible?

2) How do you bring children who are two grade levels below into an area of reading in which they are interested (age appropriate)? Talk to the parents about the benefits of read-alouds. What are some adaptations you made?

3) What is the best way to give students small-group instruction on a regular basis?

4) How do you provide individual feedback?

5) How do you know how much support to give students when writing?

6) How do you teach to students’ needs when you must prepare them for on-level testing?

Reading and writing skills are not easy to teach or learn, but we all know it’s possible with even our most difficult students. Believing that you can make an impact in your scholars’ lives academically and socially is one of the first steps. Practicing habits of growth mindsets can help keep our minds focused on helping our scholars instead of worrying and complaining about their flaws.

Building relationships is a pretty important in helping challenging students as well. When children know you care, they care. The late Rita Pearson once said, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” Sometimes they like, and still don’t learn, but at least they are not disrupting the learning of those that are making gains. We all need to start with building strong relationships. To see Five Tips that I Use to Build strong relationships, please click this link: 5 Tips to Build Strong and Real Relationships with Your Students and Their Families.

Additionally, we need to know what the students know and don’t know, where they are, and what they need to do to get them where we need to be. Starting with your state’s standards and eligible content, or the Common Core Standards are great places to start. Starting with the program that your school or district has provided is not what we should be doing. It’s a resource that provides with some strategies, problems, and activities we can use to meet and/or exceed the standards. The programs are resources that make it a little easier for us as educators so that we do not have to spend 1,000 hours on Pinterest, surfing the web, surfing your state’s Department of Education’s website, or creating your own resources 100% of the time. Someone said to me, “Your standards and eligible content are your education bibles.”

Knowledge Defines the Future

Keena Flournoy White, is an Education Administrator as well as an Instructional Specialist of literacy and has over 21 years of experience in education, supporting schools throughout the tristate area. She also has three years making an impact in Middle Schools through The Middle School Quality Initiative. She has extensive experience in supporting grades Pre K through 8 in literacy instruction. Mrs. Flournoy White played a vital role in the Reading First initiative from 2004 to 2010, which she supported over 17 schools in grades K through 3. With her support and guidance in best literacy practices and using early grade indicators, schools were able to increase student achievement by an average of 38 percent, as measured by standardized assessments.

Mrs. Flournoy White provides targeted professional development for various audiences including school leaders, coaches, and teachers in researched based literacy practices, establishing effective teacher teams, and analyzing and interpreting data that leads to creating and executing meaningful action plans.

Mrs. Flournoy White obtained her Master degrees in Teaching Reading from Long Island University,  a second masters in Educational Administration, and a third masters in Human Services Administration from Metropolitan College of New York. She is currently pursuing her doctorate degree in Literacy.

To learn more about Mrs. Keena Flournoy White, please visit her website at Knowledge Defines the Future, and follow her Facebook page also titled, Knowledge Defines the Future. 

As we continue to learn and grow together, what are some strategies that you use to motivate your students to write? Let’s keep this conversation going. Please share in the comments.

Until then, Happy Teaching!

Krystal L. Smith, The RenewED Teacher

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Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 – Cultivating Grit – A Guest Post by Jillian Smart, M.Ed.

The Value in Cultivating Grit

In January, I returned from hiatus with a blog post on confidence-building strategies. The take-home points are that we (1) value mistakes and model healthy responses to failure, (2) encourage learners to focus on what they can do, and (3) maximize critically thinking opportunities.

Since we’re in the thick of it, I’d be remiss if I did not also recap student strategies for less stressful testing. Testing season is an intense time for educators, learners, and parents. There’re a number of ways to decrease stress and enter testing season with greater confidence. One of our guest bloggers, Jillian Smart, M.Ed., shares four strategies…

1. Review information daily
2. Clarify gaps in learning
3. Change daily habits
4. Build endurance

Jackson Education Support

 

There’s a connection.

Confidence-building strategies and strategies for less stressful testing are linked by grit. When we cultivate grit, we learn (and teach others) to persevere over long periods of time. For instance, one confidence-building strategy is that we model healthy responses to failure. It’s not likely that modeling a healthy response once is going to cut it. Dealing with failure in healthy ways requires a lot of personal growth initially.

Learner perceptions about failure can be deep-rooted. The more deeply rooted our behaviors and thoughts, the more exposure to new behaviors and thoughts we require before change happens. This is not only true of our response to failure; it’s true of our response to challenge. Habits are hard to break if we aren’t gritty about making the change.

Students with low confidence and poor test performance behave and think in ways that are not self serving. We don’t want to overlook environmental factors that obliterate a child’s confidence in himself or leaves her ill-prepared to compete academically. We also don’t want to nurture narcissism. For a moment, we want to highlight something that learners can do for themselves: cultivate grit.

Cultivating Grit – Available May 5, 2018

Cultivating Grit: An approach to increasing confidence explores character development: grit, growth mindset, and motivation. I draw on personal and professional experiences as well as current research to share do-it-yourself confidence-building strategies with educators and parents. Cultivating Grit takes readers and listeners on a journey through an eight-part discussion with five reflection activities to be completed individually or as a group. The premise is that by helping learners increase confidence, performance improves in class and at home.

It’s a journey.

Those who experience failure are erroneously viewed as lacking grit. Grit skeptics seem to think that persevering over time means that we never miss the mark, that we always get the “thing” we’re passionate about… if we work hard enough. Though some focus on one goal, execute the plan, and live happily ever after, many more of us will have to work very hard at a number of our passions.

Sectors of society are afflicted with the “this is how we’ve always done it” approach to education and training, which is much too rigid for us to reap the benefits of all our talents. I encourage you to have a closer look at the opportunities we uncover by understanding and cultivating grit in our lives.

We’ve found that character development is the secret to student growth. Cultivating grit is an important piece of character education for educators and parents. Request your free download of Cultivating Grit today.

Jillian Smart, M.Ed. is an author, coach, and educator. She partners with educators and families around the world to facilitate development of more independent learners. Jillian launched Jackson Education Support as the vehicle for this work. The program she has developed is a breakthrough that has garnered much support and applause since the launch. The 96% success rate among exam preparation and tutoring clients evidences program efficacy.

Her approach is unique in that she leverages character development to affect cognitive development. Character development experiences with clients and professional development training serve as the foundation for this book.

As we continue to learn and grow together, please fill free to connect with and reach out to Jillian by visiting her site at Jackson Education Support or follow her on Facebook. In addition, please share your ideas on how you prepare your scholars to build confidence and overcome testing anxiety.

Thank you for reading, commenting, sharing, and following!

Until then, Happy Teaching!

Krystal L. Smith, The RenewED Teacher