“Because interest is a powerful motivator, children entertain themselves with activities that interest them, and they learn about their world by doing so”

—Edward Deci, 1992

Why interest-based learning?

Studies into the role of interest in learning have demonstrated evidence of gains in attention, persistence, deeper processing of content, and enhanced metacognition for typically achieving students.

There is some evidence that contexts designed around student interest enhance the learning and development of students with learning disabilities. In her extensive study of successful adults with dyslexia, Rosalie Fink found that these individuals learned to read by pursuing topics of interest. The chosen topic of interest motivated them to tackle, persevere at, and conquer their greatest enemy, reading. For some, the topic of interest became a lifelong hobby. For others, the topic of interest that compelled them to learn to read was directly related to their future life work. Regardless of outcome, these individual with dyslexia demonstrated successful compensatory abilities toward reading around topics of genuine interest in which they learned related vocabulary and concepts and developed a deep understanding of the content. A passionate domain interest motivated these individuals with dyslexia to put forth effort and persist in the reading of text in face of their disability. This engagement in the reading process led to cognitive gains. See Dr. Fink’s book “Why Jane and John Couldn’t Read–and How They Learned: A new look at striving readers” (2006).

In his powerful self-narrative “Michael’s challenge: Overcoming illiteracy,” (1988) New Zealander Michael Marquet tells of his passionate interest that spurred engagement in gardening and led him, in face of a severe speech, language, reading, and writing disability, to pursue a career in horticulture. An apprenticeship at the Botanic Gardens compelled him to repeatedly apply for acceptance in the National Horticulture Apprenticeship program. After 4 years of annual application and rejection, he was admitted to the program upon his fifth try at age 20. He also secured tutoring services in order to pass the National Horticulture Trade certification exam, which he passed on his second try. Mr. Marquet’s dedication to pursue a career in Horticulture despite numerous challenges and rejections demonstrated the powerful effects of genuine interest to facilitate engagement. This engagement was reflected in extraordinary persistence, effort, problem-solving, initiative, and planning that led to compensatory learning, mastery learning of a specific domain, and ultimately, career satisfaction.

The self stories and anecdotal reports of successful individuals with dyslexia and LD have described how their interests, as well as their strengths and proclivities, helped them not only learn to read but to find satisfying careers. And, these skills appear to develop over time. Everatt and colleagues (1999) found that, dyslexic college students outperformed non-dyslexic students on tasks that required novel and innovative ways of thinking. These results were not evident in children suggesting the dyslexics, in part, developed these skills over time. Dyslexic Malcolm Alexander’s story expounds on his interest in and subsequent success as a sculptor. He says, “Well, you know as a kid I was pretty good at art. I always played with clay when the other kids were making model airplanes. I made the pilot and put them in the planes that they made. So I decided, “Well, why not go to art school?’”

Malcolm Alexander has advice for dyslexics about pursuing what interests them and that success includes perseverance:

“I have a slogan: Find the thing that you do best and forget about the rest. And I would say, ‘Young man, within you is a gift. It’s never been given to anyone else. It’s your gift. But it’s up to you to find it. And if you search for it and find it…If you find it, God will test you to see if you’re worthy of that gift. And if you are, he’ll help you. And you will give to the world something wonderful that it’s never had before, and it’ll be your gift.’”

It behooves us to create contexts in which students read and learn about things that they are interested in. We know that the more one reads, the better a reader one becomes. We also know that our students with dyslexia do not read as much as their peers, and as they get older (i.e., 4th grade on), they are at risk for not being able to access and learn the same content that their peers are reading and learning. As a result, they are not exposed to new vocabulary or rich literate forms of language, and they begin to fall further behind their peers. We can help mitigate this by having students choose books on topics of interest. If the text is too difficult, then they can use audio (i.e., “read with their ears”). Tracking the print with the audio is ideal because then they are seeing the words and can begin to make “mental orthographic images.” That said, it is also okay to just listen because sometimes they are just plain exhausted. Remember, our students with dyslexia have to work much harder than their peers with typical-reading skills. The key is to be exposed to the material. And then, who knows where this will take them!