Basic emotional and intellectual factors in motivation can help to stimulate the learner to acquire the five major literacy skills: listening, speaking, thinking, reading, and writing. Contagion, or the spread effect in psychology, is reflected in the readily communicated attitude of the teacher toward students and teaching itself. Similarly, teacher expectation of success or failure can significantly affect the learning process. Motivation may be stimulated by the development of students' interests, and by the application of the principle of effectance, or the ability of an individual to effectively deal with a given task. The utilization of sequence, consistency, and continuity in a positive, success-oriented framework can be especially valuable in reading instruction as well as in other areas. Always, the teacher is the controlling factor in motivation and the learning process. (KS)