Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Motivation

Motivation:

Is the set of reasons that determines one to engage in a particular behavior.

Ways to Motivate your students:

1. Give frequent, early, positive feedback that supports students' beliefs that they can do well.
2. Ensure opportunities for students' success by assigning tasks that are neither too easy nor too difficult.
3. Help students find personal meaning and value in the material.
4. Create an atmosphere that is open and positive.
5. Help students feel that they are valued members of a learning community.


What's needed to Motivate your students:

1. Instructor's enthusiasm
2. Relevance of the material
3. Organization of the course
4. Appropriate difficulty level of the material
5. Active involvement of students
6. Variety
7. Rapport between teacher and students
8. Use of appropriate, concrete, and understandable examples

Monday, February 23, 2009

Comprehension

Definition of Comprehension:

The complex cognitive process involving the intentional interaction between reader and text to extract meaning.the essence of reading. Active and intentional thinking in which the meaning is constructed through interactions between the test and the reader

Comprehension is very important for the following reasons:

Readers who comprehend well are also good decoders. Teach decoding and word recognition strategies.Time spent reading is highly correlated with comprehension
Provide for lots of in-class reading, outside of class reading, independent reading.
Encourage kids to read more, read widely develop a passion for reading.