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Using Greeting Cards to Motivate Students and Enhance Literacy Skills
|Grades||K – 2|
|Lesson Plan Type||Standard Lesson|
|Estimated Time||Four 30- to 60-minute sessions|
Pennsauken, New Jersey
This lesson, which is most appropriate for first- and second-grade students, focuses on using greeting cards as a unit of study. You can use the study of greeting cards to build motivation to read and write, practice reading fluency, and attend to print concepts. This experience allows students to study the crafting techniques authors use when they create greeting cards. After exploring various greeting cards, students have the opportunity to create greeting cards and share them with other students.
Cole, J.E. (2002/2003). What motivates students to read? Four literacy personalities. The Reading Teacher, 56, 326–336.
- Teachers can create a motivational classroom environment that fosters students' strengths, honors their voices, and meets their needs.
- Teachers should provide many opportunities for students to express their opinions.
- Thematic units and author studies allow students to experience literature and reading beyond basic comprehension and reading skills.
- A wide variety of reading experiences can foster engaged reading.
Cunningham, P.M., & Allington, R.L. (2007). Classrooms that work: They can all read and write (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
- Teachers need to create powerful classroom environments where all students learn to read and write. To accomplish this, teachers need to place focus on models, materials, and motivation.
- Students need to read and write real "things."
- Students need to be exposed to a variety of reading and writing genres from very informal to very formal.