Teacher Perceptions of Reading Motivation in Children with Developmental Dyslexia and Average Readers

Abstract

This study assessed the teacher perceptions of reading engagement and several components of reading motivation in children with developmental dyslexia and average readers, in an attempt to more clearly understand the role of motivation in developmental dyslexia Sixty-eight children participated in this study. Thirty-three children made up the group with developmental dyslexia and thirty-five made up the group of average readers. In order to assess the reading motivation of the participants, teachers filled two instruments: (a) The Reading Engagement Index (Wigfield et al., 2008), a teacher rating of the engaged reader, and (b) Teacher questionnaire on student motivation to read (Sweet, Guthrie and Ng, 1998), that measure six constructs of reading motivation: activity, autonomy, social, topic, individual and writing. Results showed that teachers perceived average readers to be significantly higher in intrinsic reading motivation and in extrinsic reading motivation than those of developmental dyslexia group. Also, children with developmental dyslexia were shown to be less engaged in reading activities. These findings suggest that teachers appear to possess an implicit theory of the association of self-determination and reading scores that is compatible with self-determination theory.