Student Engagement and Student Motivation in a Reading Classroom for the Kindergarten Level Synthesis Essay

Completing Tasks

Children at the kindergarten level desire to complete tasks when they feel the importance of such tasks and they are able to relate them to their daily lives (Taskstream, 2005). The strategies that can be used in this area are:

By making the tasks offered to the children as interesting as possible

This is very necessary in order to foster the desire to do such tasks. The tasks can be made interesting by ensuring that there is a link between the tasks and the activities in the lives of the students that they do outside the classroom environment.

Additionally, the tasks have to be made appealing to the students by touching on their senses. This would require the use of pictures, drawings, sound variations when reading out stories to them and naming of objects through the use of actual objects among others.

The tasks have to be short and able to stimulate the curiosity and creativity of the children

This strategy requires that the tasks offered are short enough to allow the children to complete them. Further, they have to be tasks that spur curiosity and creativity. For example, in the tasks involving the reading of stories, it is necessary to have stories that are short enough to enable the children to follow and captivating to encourage them to read on to completion.

It is necessary to make the expectations clear and stress on the importance of the tasks

This strategy requires that the children are made aware of the importance of tasks to be completed to them and as a teacher make the expectations clear on completing such tasks. Children are thus able to gauge their success by their ability to complete the tasks. This expectation makes them able to complete the tasks despite their limitations of dealing with the task.

Autonomy

In this area, the teacher has the responsibility of ensuring that the children participate in the learning process and avoiding imposing knowledge on the children (Taskstream, 2005). The strategies in this area include:

1. Allowing students to make a choice of what they want to learn: This is possible for example by giving them the opportunity to choose the story they want to be included in the learning process.
2. It is also necessary to allow children to choose the manner of completing tasks. This is important in encouraging creativity and their engagement.
3. It is also necessary to allow students to choose the time allocations for tasks. This is very important in allowing for ample time for task completion and to encourage all the students to complete the given tasks.

Recognition

This area allows for the teacher to be able to gauge the level of literacy of the children and to encourage them to be successful (Taskstream, 2005). The strategies to use in this area include:

1. Providing the opportunities for recognition: This is necessary through offering tasks that encourage students to share experiences on their own. This can be achieved through instances where each student gets the opportunity to share stories with the others in the classroom context.
2. Giving of praise as a reward: Rewards are very important for the motivation of the students. When applied in reading, the teacher has the responsibility of offering praise to the children for their improvements in language as well as for their reading and contributions to the classroom.
3. Giving opportunities for the learners to read: Although in the kindergarten most reading is done by the teacher, it is important to give the students opportunities to read through random selection or a specific strategy for allowing the students to read.

Grouping that enhances social skills

Children need to be able to acquire social skills and learn from each other (Taskstream, 2005). In this area, the strategies to encourage motivation and engagement include:

1. Encouraging the sharing with others: This is very important to foster group work and enable the students to be able to learn from each other.
2. Encouraging grouping on mixed ability: This allows the students to learn from each other due to the difference in their abilities and encourages peer learning.
3. Offering support in group work: Children are confident in group situations where the support of the teacher is given with the setting of objectives for what to be done in the groups.

Evaluation

This is very important since it provides reports of the ability of the student and shows the level of learning achieved (Taskstream, 2005). The strategies that can be used in this area include:

1. Providing opportunities for self assessment: This allows the children to be able to gauge their own level of difficulty. For example, children can be encouraged to read aloud and when they come to difficult areas, they are able to be guided. Further, they can take part in activities such as singing of songs that help them determine their literacy levels.
2. Giving of reports: This is important since it provides feedback to the child and to the parents on the students’ level of performance. It is important to offer praise for improvements made and provide expectations of improvement in the future.
3. Encouraging evaluation for both information and pleasure: This enables the students to be free in gauging their reading abilities since there is limited pressure and competition.

Reference List

Taskstream. (2005). Web-based tools to organize, assess, and showcase learning. Web.