Motivation for Learning to Read and Write

By Mark W.F. Condon, Unite for Literacy vice president

The hardest lessons for teachers or parents to pull off are those for which they fail to generate an emotional fire of interest in their students or kids. Humans attend to things that they find interesting, that they connect to emotionally or intellectually, or that are recommended by a trusted ally. Therefore, the promise of relevant content is the key lure when new readers are choosing books to engage with.  

Early on, children are interested in books because they enjoy shared reading time with loved ones. As they grow, helping children find their personal interests in books supports their learning to read and write. As book knowledge develops, adults can ask children what they would like to read about next, establishing book reading as a part of the family’s culture. 

Helping children find books that resonate with them also is the only surefire way to set them up to love reading, and to want to use their own writing and artwork to communicate their ideas and feelings with others. Getting special notes under a plate or in a lunch bag serves to inspire curiosity to explore the power of writing. 

Anything at all can be used for lighting and fueling a child’s attention to the books they encounter in a store or library. Youngsters internalize the idea that school and public libraries, and their friends’ book collections potentially offer an unending flow of delights to enrich their understandings of the world and everything in it. Discovering books that present a never-ending availability of innovative ideas, exciting adventures, exotic places, and people different from themselves gives children agency over their own learning to read and then reading to learn.  

This cultural shift cannot occur in a social vacuum. Literacy, at its core, is the sharing between authors, illustrators and their readers and viewers. Herein lies a critical role for a child’s family and friends. It involves reading books together and modeling one’s own literacy and correspondence routines. Both help children enjoy the challenges and rewards they encounter with the printed word which lays the groundwork for a joyful life of reading and writing.