Credibility is the student’s belief that I’m a good teacher—one who cares about them, who understands them as a reader and can help them experience great things through reading. Efficient teaching strategies like moments of genuine connection help with credibility, as does the long-term teacher goal of being well-read in our discipline.
Value is the student’s belief that reading matters—that it’s interesting, useful, enjoyable, or so on. We can influence Value through tried-and-true methods such as book talks, effective hooks, or the student-centered “build connections” intervention activity.
Belonging is the sense a student has of a fit between their identity and a given reading assignment. We can influence this by asking our students to share their reading histories and complete interest inventories at the start of a school year, using what we learn in subsequent interactions with our students.
And finally, the Effort and Efficacy beliefs are present when a student feels that they are able to succeed at a given reading task and that their effort is likely to produce improvement in their skill and knowledge as a reader. We can improve Efficacy by being clear about what success looks like for a given reading assignment and we can improve The effort by praising students for specific, strategic, successful efforts that they’ve taken to improve themselves as readers during their time in our class.