Motivating Your Third Grader

September 14, 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment

Not all students come to school excited to learn and ready to absorb everything the teacher says.  Some children are just not motivated and for these students teachers and parents have to work together to find an answer.  Here are some ideas.

  • If you are a parent of an unmotivated child, talk to the teacher and if you are a teacher of an unmotivated student, talk to the parent.  Parents and teachers can give each other ideas as to what works for them.
  • Sometimes students are unmotivated because they are afraid of failing.  In their minds it may be easier to do nothing than try and fail.  If this is the case, the teacher may have to give the child something easier to do so that they can succeed and very slowly add something a little harder.  Success breeds success.
  • Big Bird from Sesame Street used to say that everyone makes mistakes.  For children who are afraid to make mistakes, I would remind them of this.  Making mistakes is how we learn.  When a child can learn to take a risk and try to do something on his own, he/she should be complimented even if she/he  did not succeed.
  • Some students  may have been helped too much in the past and they have not learned how to work on their own and so they will not work unless an adult is right there to help them.  If this is the case, remind them that you have other students to help and that they can work alone, but you will be back to help in five minutes (or whatever  amount of time you want to suggest) to help.
  • For some students rewarding them with a small sticker for the exhibiting the  behavior you desire will work.
  • Have a class discussion on good work habits may work also.  Ask them for imput  on how they are motivated.
  • Reading  stories to the children about people who were motivated to work hard and discuss with the students the results works also.  Some good examples are biographies of famous Americans or sport’s heroes.  People who come to mind are Michael Jordan and Helen Keller, but there are many others.

I hope these ideas are helpful to someone.  If anyone reading this has ideas that worked for you, please leave a comment.