POSTUPCI UČITELJA USMERENI NA PODSTICANJE MOTIVACIJE UČENIKA ZA ČITANJE

The studying of students’ motivation for reading includes various factors and their relationships with engagement during reading and reading comprehension. At the primary school level (from 1st to 4th grade), the development of students’ reading competencies is very intensive and finding effective approaches to motivate students to read is a challenge for teachers. In this paper we investigated how teachers encourage students’ motivation to read. Secondary analyses of data obtained through the Teacher Questionnaire and the Student Questionnaire in the PIRLS 2021 study in Serbia on a sample of 226 teachers and 4037 students of the 4th grade of primary school were performed. The teachers’ practices are related to organizing different forms of work and encouraging discussion, understanding and interpretation of what has been read. According to the obtained results, the teaching of reading is more focused on the whole class and independent work of students and less on group work. Teachers most frequently encourage students to discuss and deepen their understanding of the text, to answer questions and retell what they read. Reading motivation is related to students’ perceptions of the teacher’s practices. More motivated students find the content that their teachers assign them to read interesting. The findings suggest that different forms of work should be used in classrooms to promote students’ reading interests, enjoyment and engagement. This allows the development of motivation, habits and competencies for reading.