purpose

My focus was on four students, each on individualized learning plans; one solely for behavior, another for a reading impairment, one with a visual impairment, and another student identified with an OHI, or other health impairment. These are the four students who obtained the lowest scores on their Reading Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test. MAP data is a state test that assesses student knowledge on the areas of Reading, Math, Science, and Language Arts. A student's data is compared to the norm for their grade level as well as the district norm and their personal scores from previous tests. My study was centered around these four students. 

Data from these particular students’ most recent MAP data showed that all four students were achieving well below the average on their reading test. These students were a part of the 56% of students in my class who scored below average on this test with scores of 181, 185, 193, and 196. These scores respectively put them in the 2nd, 4th, 11th, and 16th percentile. Upon observation, I  noticed that these four students were typically off task during our independent reading time block.  I also noticed that these four students were less engaged and or off task when it came to our whole group reading block. These avoidant behaviors manifested themselves by frequent bathroom breaks, redirections, interacting with others, or sitting in their reading spots with no book. Three of these four students were additionally less engaged and motivated during writing tasks. I made the assumption there was a correlation between the two things. These data points showed me that there was a need for accountability with these students, but accountability that they found purposeful and engaging, rather than appearing as busywork.

What I hoped to gain from this study was to find out different effective strategies for motivating students who were less inclined to read and or write. I saw this topic as incredibly important because, as I have learned from my initial literature review, motivation is a key factor in student achievement. Another reason this research was important is because reading and writing are essential life skills that everyone needs throughout the entirety of their life. Reading and writing are used every single day in many different facets and it is important to foster engagement, motivation, and skills early to promote success later in life. I was interested in tailoring this research to the four students in particular because they were all on four different IEPs and I looked forward to seeing how those different factors impacted the success of some strategies. Part of me also chose this topic for research because I wanted to challenge myself as an educator. I personally love reading and writing and those things come pretty naturally to me, so I wanted to expand my knowledge and realm to work on motivating and engaging students who did not necessarily share those same views.