How I Increased Student Interest in my Classroom Library

I love reading! Each year, it is my goal to pass my love of reading on to my students. I stock my classroom library with tons of books and have reached a collection of over 1,000. I am extremely proud of my library and love to see my students checkout books and discover the journey of reading! 

However, after years of teaching, I noticed that some really good books never leave the shelf. I realize there are classics that I love that may no longer interest students, but those are a small portion of the books I'm referring to. I have hundreds of books that students aren't even considering, books that I know at least one student would fall in love with if they'd be willing to give it a try. 

I've been thinking a lot about ways to convince my students to at least give these books a try. At the end of last year, I sat down and evaluated the books that had been checked out the most. I use Booksource Classroom Organizer, so I was able to print out reports which allowed me to see the books that were checked out during the course of the year. As expected, there were some series that really stood out (I'm looking at you, Diary of a Wimpy Kid), but something else caught my attention - the books I'd labeled easy and challenging weren't being touched. Students who were capable of reading more challenging text weren't. Those "striving readers" (thank you for this perfect term, Stephanie Harvey) were choosing grade level books that were too hard for them and leaving my easy section untouched. The majority of the books that were checked out were labeled on grade level. That's when I realized that my leveling was actually getting in the way of students enjoying a wonderful book. 

GOODBYE, LEVELED LIBRARY!

That realization told me it was time to make a BIG change. I let go of levels. No AR, no Lexile, no F&P, no nothing. It's something I'd been thinking about a lot, especially after reading The Book Whisperer and a number of other professional books and blogs which discouraged the idea. (On a side note, F&P was apparently never meant to become a leveling system for classroom libraries. Click here to read more about this.)

This summer, I had some student helpers come in for a few days. We spent the first day taking all of the stickers off of every single one of my books. We made a gigantic pile of books on the floor. I'll admit, about half way through the unleveling process, I had a bit of a panic, but I held strong to my gut feeling that this was the change I needed. The next two days were spent sorting my books by genre, and I definitely couldn't have done this without helpers. By the time we finished, we had sorted all of the books into specific genres without consideration of level. I used mini dot stickers to organize the genres (one green for realistic fiction, one red for mystery, etc.) and put the books back on the shelf in a way that I'd never done in 13 years. I was excited to try something new and see if this change would make a difference.

Here's an additional link if you are thinking about saying goodbye to levels: Leveled Libraries are Outdated

FIRST WORDS BULLETIN BOARD

Of course, the true test would be to see what happened when the students arrived and began to checkout books. I wanted to grab their attention from the moment they walked in on the first day of school, so I did a repeat of a bulletin board from the year before, one titled "First Words", an idea I got from Literacy for Big Kids. On this board, I used 40 different first lines from 40 different books in my library, many of which were those amazing books that were going untouched. Under each quote, I placed a picture of the cover and it's location in our library, by genre, of course! It's a huge board and students were chatting about it from the minute they walked in the door. Once I told them that they could actually come up and lift the quote to see what book it was from, they were eager to begin to checkout books from our library. 

A quick tour of my board.

BOOK PREVIEWS HAVE BEEN A GAME CHANGER

I made one more change that has been a total game changer. I decided to add a daily book recommendation on my morning slide and to "preview" a new book each day for the first 40 days. In another attempt to increase student interest in books that may otherwise be ignored, I read a chapter or two from the daily recommended book. In the three weeks that I have been doing this, the response has been AMAZING! I wish I had done book previews years ago. Students are actually begging to checkout books and sometimes we have to draw sticks for a fair decision on who can check it out first. If students already have a great book, they are adding it to their "to-read" list in their 40 Book Challenge binders. And of course, I'm not even mentioning levels during these previews. Book previews are going so well that I may continue it well beyond the first 40 days!

Please don't judge me too harshly for the AR test option - it's an option (and only an option) because we have it and students have been using it for years, but book reviews are encouraged in my classroom.

SO FAR, SO GOOD!

Now, all of this doesn't mean that I've stopped thinking about levels entirely. I'm a teacher, it's my job to consider level when planning instruction. I've just taken a new approach to my classroom library. I spend a considerable amount of time discussing and modeling the right time to abandon a book and students are getting really good at recognizing when a book isn't right for them. Students are now exploring books that went untouched for years. They are no longer disqualifying a book because it's not on their level. Instead, they are thinking about the genres they enjoy, the book previews that interest them, the reviews of their peers, my additional recommendations, and their own enjoyment of the book once they check it out and begin their journey. 

A colleague stopped in when I was doing a book preview during the first week of school. Afterwards, I mentioned the changes I'd made. She said, "If it works for one, it was worth it." Of course, I said, "No, it has to work for all!" That may be incredibly optimistic of me, but the following conversations have taken place since I made these changes:

One morning during our second week of school: 

Future Bookworm: "Mrs. Ostrander, I spent three hours reading that book last night. It was so emotional and amazing. Did you know it's a series? Do you have any more?" 

(I didn't, but I surely went on Amazon to order the rest, and she is already on the last book of the three-book series. We started school on August 14th.)

At back to school night:

Parent: "My daughter has read more books in one week than she read all summer."

After a preview of Refugee:

Future Bookworm 1: "I don't think I can do historical fiction, it's just too real."

Future Bookworm 2: "Well, good, because I want that book first!"

Future Bookworm 3: "Are you kidding? I was hoping I'd get it. There's so much action, I just can't wait to read more!"

One very quiet student who has fallen in love with a graphic novel series:

Me: "I've noticed that you really love that series. Did you know that there are more? Would you be interested in reading them?"

Future Bookworm: "Mrs. Ostrander, I'd read every single one if we had it."

(She's now read 5 in the series. I've just placed a second order for the rest.)

They're falling in love with reading, one book at a time. I'm sticking to my optimistic hope that I'll have 25 bookworms by June! 

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I Didn't Do My Homework... A Fun Book & Activity for the First Week of School

Last year, I purchased I Didn't Do My Homework Because... (not an affiliate link) because the illustrations appealed to me and it looked like a fun book to share with my students during the first week of school. I like to have fun, short books to introduce important rules and procedures to my students. This book was a great introduction to our discussion about homework, which is actually pretty minimal in my class, but exists, nonetheless. I brought my students to the carpet and previewed the cover, asking them what their honest thoughts were on homework. We discussed the types of assignments they liked and the types they didn't like. Then, I asked students if any of them had ever forgotten to do their homework. Of course, many hands went up and they all did a little nervous giggle together. I asked them to turn and talk to a partner (this was a great time to squeeze in my expectations for turn and talks on the carpet) about a reason that they didn't do their homework. After they had a couple of minutes to share, I told them we'd be reading a story with a number of excuses inside. It would be up to them to determine if any of the excuses were actually believable.

I read the book, sharing the pictures, and we all laughed about the reasons the main character didn't complete his homework. I gave students time to share their favorite excuse from the story and we also discussed which ones were possible and which were impossible. Since I had their full attention and engagement, I used this as a springboard for my rules and expectations for homework. We had a serious discussion about what would be expected of them throughout the year. I made my expectations clear, allowed them to ask questions, and then shifted the focus to a fun activity. I created a reproducible that asks students to become both author and illustrator of their own creative excuse for not doing their homework. They were excited to get to work. Before they worked on their illustrations, I had them decide what their excuse would be and write it down under the picture, not telling or showing anyone at first so that all of their ideas would be their own. Once everyone had written down their excuse, I allowed students to talk at a whisper (level 1) as they began to work on their illustrations. The whole activity took about an hour. I put all of their pictures on the wall as soon as they completed them! We had some really creative excuses, as you'll see below!

This creative student wrote, "A magician came and turned me into a french fry. I did not have any hands to pick up my pencil or flip a page. Then a giant dipped me into ketchup and bit my head off! 

Another wonderful student wrote, "A evil unicorn on a storm cloud took my house with my homework."

This fantastic student wrote, "A shark-faced dog took me to get ice cream. When I came home, I asked where my homework was and my sister said her frog ate it."

If you don't have a copy of this book, I encourage you to borrow one or invest in one for your classroom. I will be doing this every year from now on. It was a great way to engage students, read an enjoyable book, address an important topic, and give students time to have fun and be creative. You can click the image below to grab a copy of the reproducible for the activity. Enjoy!

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Book Reviews: An Alternative to Book Reports

For many of us, just hearing the words book report gives us a flashback to tedious reports that we were tasked with completing when we were in school. I remember standing in the front of my class, reading my book report, being bored by my own review, and just as bored by the reviews of the others. The big problem was that they lacked creativity. There was an exact format and so even though we did different books, they all sounded exactly the same. 

So needless to say, I don't want to be THAT teacher, but I do want to know that my students are reading, especially since we do a 40 book challenge. So I started to play around with the idea of book reviews. I'm a voracious reader, and Goodreads is one of my favorite websites. I love to keep track of the books I want to read, the books my friends are reading, and also write book reviews when I've completed a book. I like getting my voice heard and sharing my opinion. 

What's that? A book review is opinion writing? That's right! This doesn't just cover reading comprehension, it's also going to cover opinion writing. Don't you just love it when you can double dip? I know do! 

Now, there are tons of formats for book reviews. I know this just from reading reviews on Goodreads, but I also saw that teachers are doing these in many different ways. I did a lot of reading on what others are doing, and then decided what I wanted to see in the reviews of my students, as well as what was appropriate for fifth grade (which ruled Goodreads out). I knew right away that I wanted students to share their reviews so that they would serve as recommendations and encourage their classmates to select the books they were reading about. 

The first thing I did is decide what components I wanted to see, or what my requirements would be. I decided I wanted the following, not necessarily in this order, but pretty close to it:

• a creative review title
• an introduction with the title, author, and genre
• a short summary that DOES NOT give the ending away - again, I want these to serve as recommendations, so it's important that they not give the ending away so others will actually want to read and find out what happens
• the above bullet can still apply for nonfiction, but the summary would be focused on the main topics
• a detailed description of the main character or characters/a more detailed description of interesting topics if nonfiction
• their opinion of the book with a rating on a five-star scale 
• two personal reactions - reasons why they rated the book the way they did, with supporting evidence
• a recommendation - a sentence or two describing the perfect audience for this book

Students had two options for presenting their book reviews, Kidblog, which I love because it is private to just our class. You can get a free membership, but I did the paid one just so that I would have all of the perks since I used it for more than just book reviews. 

Below is what the main Kidblog page looks like. It displays all of the book reviews for our whole class. We did talk about coming up with more creative pictures for their headings (as well as copyright issues related to that) and I plan to more strict about that this coming school year. 

T his is what the student book reviews look like when you select one from the main page. Students are required to comment at least one review per week. 

If you are interested in using Kidblog, you can grab a copy of my step-by-step directions for creating their post by clicking the picture below: 

The other option was a video review and womp, womp, womp - no one did it. 😞 But, I did give the option, and even made my own example video (after about 200 takes...thanks to my extremely patient hubby). Maybe this year will be the year of the video review. My fingers are crossed! 

As these are graded, I did create a book review rubric. You can click on the picture to download the rubric. 

If you are interested in grabbing everything I created, I recently listed my book review pack in my TPT store. You can click the picture below to see the listing. 

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Using Book Journals for Accountable Independent Reading

I'm in a lot of teacher groups on Facebook and one of the questions that pops up most often is, How do you hold students accountable for independent reading? This is a question I have pondered throughout my years of teaching and I've struggled to find the perfect solution. Last year, when I read The Book Whisperer, I read about book journals and I was intrigued. I loved the idea of having a book chat with a student using a weekly journal and so I gave it a try. This post will explore my first experience with weekly book journals for independent reading.

I purchased a composition book for each student and handed them out on the first day. I told students that this book would be a conversation between us about the books they were reading. I presented them with a model book journal and I gave them a list of journal ideas should they get writer's block. I explained that they only needed to complete one thoughtful entry each week, to be turned in by Friday. They were excited to not have weekly logs, but I also told them that while they were not writing nightly, they should still be reading nightly. 

Now, let me digress for a minute. As a teacher, I know that the question that you want to ask is But how did you know they were reading nightly? The answer is that I didn't. I've become realistic after 12 years in the classroom. Some students are going to read every night and some students are not. The fact is, their lives outside of the classroom are sometimes chaotic with sports, helping with their siblings, and other family engagements. What is important to me is that they are reading at some point and I'm pretty confident that I build enough authentic excitement for reading in the classroom that most of my students will actually want to read on their own. As teachers, we're responsible for introducing students to new books daily and showing them that reading can be an enjoyable adventure. I also happen to be a voracious reader so there is not acting in my classroom, I am truly passionate and excited each time I get a new book in my hand! I also open my classroom early to readers who don't have a quiet space at home and yes, students do show up! 

The first journals were pretty good! For me, it was exciting to see what my students were reading and how they were responding to the characters and events in their stories. Of course, my students who were already in love with books turned in journals that were much more detailed, but I was happy to see that my struggling readers and English Language Learners were also able to write several sentences about their reading. It was fun to write back to each one of them. This is also where I was able to get them to "dig deeper" with their responses. When I wrote back to them, I asked them questions that would activate more critical thinking about the text. When I first started the journals, one of my biggest concerns was that I wouldn't be able to evaluate their comprehension strategies and skills, but I did not need to worry about that. Our conversations were authentic and I was able to better activate their use of skills and strategies through these journals than I ever was with a reading log. If you're new to teaching and so these skills and strategies won't come naturally to you just yet, don't worry. A quick Google search of ELA stem starters for your grade level and state will give you lots of resources. When you find some good ones, print them out and have them handy when you are responding to journals. After awhile, it will come naturally. Here's some examples: 

Now, another question that you are going to have is Did you grade them, Mrs. O? I marked them for completion only. The point of this is not to get a grade, it's to monitor their independent reading and guide students to think deeper about the book they are reading. I don't know that there is a proper rubric for that. For me, it's more of an informal assessment that doesn't need a grade, because the proof is in the journal. 

Speaking of which, guess what else your students are doing? They are writing! That's right, book journals trick your students in to working on their writing and reading at the same time! Genius, isn't it? Now, some teachers including the writer of The Book Whisperer, do not correct grammar or spelling in the journals. Now, I do not take the red pen of death (just kidding, I use pretty Flair pens of death) to the journal, but I do some marginal corrections here and there, sometimes on sticky notes to avoid marking their journal up. I think, Hey, why not stick a quick note about too, to, and two in their journal? Though the focus is certainly on comprehension, it's also a great chance to give a little grammar and writing feedback and I'm all about double dipping! 

So this all sounds lovely, doesn't it? Well, I'm all about being honest so I don't want to leave out the stuff that didn't go so well. Here's a list of the "oh no's" (Mrs. O "Knows" - get it?) that I will be revising for the upcoming year. 

#1: Responding takes a long time. This is the biggest drawback of journals. I don't have a great recommendation for making this easier. One thing that did help was allowing the journals to be turned in on any day of the week. They were due by Friday, but I encouraged students to turn them in whenever they were done. That way I wasn't responding to all of them over the weekend, though some weeks they all turned them in on Friday so I'd try to break it up and do 5 here, take a break, do 5 more, etc. I had a recent chat with another teacher about this problem and she came up with the idea of assigning students different due days - 5 on Monday, 5 on Tuesday, and so on. I think this is a wonderful idea to make it less overwhelming! I also think if I did the journals online, my responses would be faster because I type faster than I write. I'm currently exploring online options, but haven't found anything I love yet. Plus, I'm a sucker for a handwritten journal! 

#2: Model, model, model! For some students, the freedom of writing anything about their book actually made it difficult. They needed more structure and examples. I ended up modeling for individual students throughout the year. This year, I'm going to not only model a lot more at the beginning of the year, I'm going to share good examples of their work weekly. I'm also planning to let them do their first few weeks of journals in class with me in hopes that a more gradual release will better support those students who don't know what to write about. 

#3: This is not a book report. This is not a book review. Because my students do a monthly book review or project, some of them started to write book reviews for journals. I am going to make sure that I stress the difference between the journals and the book reviews/reports so that they aren't writing a weekly book review, which is not only tedious for them to write, it's also tedious for me to read! 

#4: Model some more...and make sure you're doing both fiction and nonfiction! Are you reading a book aloud? Write a journal about it for the class to see. Did you read a really good story as a mentor text for writing? Write a journal for the class to see. Was that informational text on hurricanes mind-blowing? Model a journal! It's definitely a great idea to have your own journal that you can write in throughout the year and have on hand for students to access for ideas. Also, make sure that you model both fiction and nonfiction. I had a few students who just loved nonfiction, and my prompts were really geared towards fiction. I'll openly admit I only modeled nonfiction once. I'm going to give my students two separate pages of prompts (one fiction and one nonfiction) next year to make this easier for my nonfiction readers! 

Overall, it's the best thing I've tried yet to hold students accountable for their independent reading. I truly enjoy reading their entries and my students can't wait to read my responses! When I place their journal on their desk, they immediately open it up to read what I wrote and get these big, adorable smiles on their faces. I love it! Also, it's a great way for me to assess their comprehension of the books they are choosing and push them towards deeper thinking through our journal conversations. Although it takes a bit more time than I'd like it to, I think it's worth it. 

To grab a printable of the directions, journal prompts, and samples I included in this post, click on the image below. 

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The 40 Book Challenge in My Classroom

Last summer, I picked up a book I've been wanting to read for quite some time, The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. It's been on my to-read list for a couple of years and since I moved to a new school, I figured it was the perfect time to get some new inspiration.

Well, this book blew me away. You see, I love reading, and it is always my goal to help my students to love reading as well. I achieve this with engaging read-alouds, but I admit that I hadn't put much thought into independent reading other than to make sure that students are reading on their level, yadda, yadda, yadda. I realized that though I've stacked my classroom library with over 1,000 books, I've never taken the time to match students with a book that is perfect for them. I don't mean right in that it's on their level, I'm talking about it being right by being something that they are actually interested in reading. As I read Donalyn's book, I realized that I've missed out on great opportunities for meaningful recommendations. I was providing students with the opportunity to enjoy books that I read, but I was not putting enough thought into the books that they were reading on their own. Now that I've read The Book Whisperer, I am vowing to never let this happen again! Reading this book not only inspired me to create my own 40 book challenge, it also inspired me to rethink the way that I approach independent reading and I'm so glad it did. Below, I'd like to share how I'm using what I learned from her book in my classroom. I will preface this by saying that I've made changes that work for me, pulling the components that were most meaningful for me and the students in my classroom.

I decided that I would keep the goal of 40 books, and I did say that they must be books that are on their reading level or above to count towards the challenge. At first, I tried to be flexible on the level because I don't want students to avoid great books that might be easy, but I found that they started to take advantage of this, so I tightened the reins on it. I did not assign certain genres as suggested in their book. The reason that I did this was A) I knew I was going to expose them to different genres through our reading curriculum. B) There are genres that I dislike reading as an adult. Put a science fiction book in front of me and my eyes immediately glaze over. I don't want to force my students to read books they aren't interested in because I believe that defeats the purpose of creating a love of reading. I want my 40 book challenge to be focused on books that my students will truly enjoy.

When I introduced the challenge, I was really concerned about stressing my students out.  I knew some students would hear me say 40, and then hear nothing else if I didn't put their mind's at ease right away. Teachers must keep in mind that there are some students in their class who don't enjoy reading yet. I knew I needed a buy-in from those students so I thought about what they would need to hear.

The first thing that I told my students was that this was not a competition against one another, but instead the same as setting a goal and working hard to achieve it. I explained to them that as long as they were completing their weekly assignments related to the challenge, I would be proud of them, regardless of whether they met their goal of 40 or not. To chart their progress,  I hung pennants each week with their updated number and they loved this and they also recorded their progress in their binders (more on that in a minute). I made sure that it was very clear to my students that this challenge wasn't about who can read the most, but rather who is working towards their goal. This conversation took a lot of stress off of their shoulders and helped them to understand that the goal is to enjoy reading.

Our pennants at the beginning of the year. Each one says _______(name)  is ready to begin the challenge.

The first week of school, I gave an interest survey. I had to do mine differently from the one used in the book because I'm elementary and hers seemed to geared towards middle school students My main goal with this survey was to find out what makes each student "tick" so that the books I recommend for them will be closely aligned to their interests. I also asked some questions to find out their strengths and weaknesses with reading to give me a heads up on their needs. As I read each survey, I went into my classroom library and started pulling recommendations for my students and leaving them on their desks. This was great for me because it allowed me to become reacquainted with my own classroom library. It excited my students to see my recommendations. As we went through the year, I would order books from Scholastic and when they would arrive, I'd immediately introduce them to the class and then recommend them to students who I knew would enjoy them! They loved it and I enjoyed using their interest surveys to get to know them as readers and seeing their wish lists grow!

Click on the image above for a reproducible copy of my interest survey for elementary students.

Click on the image above to get a printable copy of this cover for student binders. I have it in 20, 30, and 40.

I created each student a book challenge binder of their own. In that binder I placed a reading log where students tracked each book they completed, a wish list for books they wanted to read in the future, and sample book reviews, to be explained in an upcoming blog post. Of course, you are probably wondering how I knew for sure that they were reading each book, and for this, I did a combination of Donalyn's ideas, my own ideas, and what the students have already been doing. 

I decided to have students complete a weekly journal in which they write about a book that they are reading. I respond to their entry and it becomes a weekly chat between student and teacher. Their journal entry makes it clear if they are reading or just skimming. For a more in-depth post on the pros and cons of this, as well as a more-detailed explanation of how I used journals in the classroom, head over the the following link: Using Book Journals for Accountable Independent Reading

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an AR person. I wish it would go away entirely. However, my students have spent the past 5 years participating in AR and some really love it, so I didn't want to take this option away from them completely. I allowed students to take a test on their level or above and as long as they passed it (I set the goal at 80%),  I allowed them to count the book towards their 40 book challenge. I did have one incident where students were all taking the same test and sharing the answers (one of the many things about AR that I do not like), but it was an isolated incident. I monitored daily to make sure that did not happen again.

For students who don't often pass AR tests, or do not enjoy taking them, I allowed students to complete a book review with two options, a written review on Kid Blog or a video review on Kid Blog. I purchased the yearly subscription to Kid Blog and loved that we could use this format to share the fantastic books that we are reading and recommend them to others. I did my own examples of each and posted them to Kid Blog in advance to share them with my students. I also created a rubric to share with the students and walked them through their first book review on Kid Blog. I found that they were much less nervous about book reviews once they completed one together. It's all part of the I do, we do, you do model when it comes to these. I required everyone to complete at least one book review per month, but the remainder of the books that they complete can be AR tests if they choose. Overall, this went well, but I think they got a little bored of it, so I am planning to add a book project each trimester that will take the place of 1 book review each trimester so that they have a bit more choice in their accountability. Here is a link to my post on book reviews: Book Reviews: An Alternative to Book Reports

 I am very pleased with the results of the 40 book challenge. As I assured my students on the very first day, it was always about finding books they love and reading because they wanted to, not because I was forcing them to. In the end, only three students met the challenge of 40 books (with one reaching 73), but every single child surprised themselves because they read more this year than they ever had in years before. Even more importantly, they loved each book they read. Parents were a bit nervous about this challenge at the beginning of the year, but they were thrilled with it in the end because they saw that regardless of how many books they had read, all students were seeing themselves as readers and were proud of what they accomplished because of this challenge. What more could a teacher ask for?

I will absolutely do the challenge again. I will tweak a few things here and there. As mentioned, I do think that the book reviews became a bit monotonous so I need to reevaluate those. I think a project a trimester will help and I'm going to think about other choices that I can offer that students will be excited about. Also, I'm going to do a better job of modeling their journal entries in the beginning so that I get more meaningful journals from students.

Want my pennant template? Click the image above to download it for free! You will need to add text boxes to add student names and numbers. 

If you have any questions about how I did the 40 book challenge in my classroom, please feel free to comment below! I strongly encourage you to grab a copy of The Book Whisperer before starting your journey! 

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Doodle & Think - A Great Way to End Your Week

Last year, I came across Doodle Art Alley, which has free printable inspirational quotes that are begging to be colored! I allowed students to color them our first week and then used them to decorate our cupboards throughout the year. It was a great way to brighten up our room!

This year, I decided to do things a little differently. My students have morning work each day that is a science daily review, because our fifth grade students are tested on 4th and 5th grade standards. The daily review keeps those fourth grade concepts fresh in their mind all year. Anyway, these reviews only go Monday through Thursday, so I needed some morning work for Friday. Since my fifth graders work hard all week, I wanted it to be something that was a little bit more relaxing. I thought about how coloring has become all the craze again and how there really isn't much time for coloring in fifth grade. Then I thought about these inspirational quotes and tried to think of a way that I could use them each Friday as their morning work without them being just about coloring. That's when I realized that my read-aloud and these quotes could be connected! 

Each Friday as part of our morning meeting, I read a different picture book. Each book has a different theme that can be applied to the choices that students make and the experiences that they have had. So I thought to myself, what if I pulled quotes that connect the stories that I read and I ask students to share what the quotes mean to them? That's when my Doodle and Think form was born! 

We started with  The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes by Mark Pett and Gary Rubinstein and students received one of the two quotes in the picture above. For morning work, they filled out the Doodle and Think Form, explaining what the quote means to them, and then they color the quote. After morning announcements, they bring their quotes and Doodle & Think forms to the carpet, I read the story, and then students are able to share what they wrote. We talk about how the quotes connected to the story and how they can apply the message to their own lives. These conversations have been rich, meaningful, and engaging. I couldn't ask for more. I really teach students to embrace mistakes as a part of learning, and the responses that they came up with showed me that they know the importance of a safe learning environment where mistakes are not something to be ashamed of. 

I have an elephant theme this year so I stocked up on elephant picture books. How I made it through 10 years without ever reading Elmer by David McKee is beyond me! I LOVE this little story and my students did too. What a great conversation we had about accepting each other and the beauty of being your own person. Since I have fifth graders, this turned in to a great conversation about not changing who you are because of peer pressure. Loved this! 

Continuing with my love of elephants, was Ellie by Mike Wu! My favorite response from this day was "great things come in small packages." Again, an adorable picture book, a great lesson, and a conversation that made me confident that these Friday Doodle & Thinks are so much more than coloring and a read-aloud. 

I am going to try to share my Doodle & Think with you each week. If you'd like to grab the Doodle & Think form, click below and download the file! Whether it's Friday, Monday, or just a random day, you'll enjoy the great conversations that come from this activity!

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Love Your Reading Logs

My Reading Log Journey

Whether you are a teacher or not, you've probably used reading logs in some form or another at some point in your life. I used them in elementary school and I've been using them my entire teaching career. I've certainly had a love/hate relationship with them at times.

When I first began teaching, I used the "write a summary sentence" logs. You know, the ones that have room for a sentence and a parent signature each night and that's about it. About three years into my career, I realized that I wasn't getting anything out of these reading logs. As I read them over each week, I couldn't get over how monotonous they were. I felt like I was punishing my students AND myself. I've always had trouble assigning work just to assign it and reading logs were definitely falling in to that category for me. They weren't informing me of anything besides the fact that my students clearly disliked them as much as I did. I wanted to just get rid of reading logs all together. However, at-home reading was required at my school, so I knew I needed to make a change. I sat down and made a list of the skills and strategies that my fifth graders would need to practice and I set out to create new logs for my students. I focused on one strategy or skill at a time, creating logs as I covered different skills and strategies. I wanted to make sure that I created something that I felt would be a true indicator of a student's ability to apply the skills and strategies to their own independent reading. I didn't have a lot of graphic know-how back then, so the first one looked like this:

Maybe it wasn't the cutest, but I'm still incredibly proud of this creation not because of how it looks, but because it does exactly what I need it to do. I still remember when I switched over to these reading logs and my first batch were handed in that Friday. What a difference! I was finally able to read responses and assess each student's ability with that specific skill or strategy. It was easy to see which students had mastered an area of focus and which ones needed more practice, which was great for planning for reading groups as well. 

That was seven years ago. Today, these logs are more aesthetically pleasing, and I'm pleased to say that they've grown to be a set of 20 logs. 

Teaching and Assigning Logs

So, how do I use these with my students? First, I introduce one log at a time. For example, we start with narrative elements, so I start with a narrative elements log. I model, model, model using each log so that I am 100% sure that students understand my expectations. The best time to do this is after our read-aloud. I might introduce and model on Monday, model again on Tuesday, then give students a chance to do one themselves after our read-aloud on Wednesday and Thursday. For the logs that they do themselves, I copy Wednesday and Thursday back to back. At the end of Thursday's practice, I collect their logs and look them over. I select those that are closest to what I modeled, and then I share them on Friday - with student permission, of course. 

The following week I begin to assign that log with their independent reading. This can be independent reading in the classroom or at home, or both. In fact, I created two sets of logs, one with parent signature spaces and one without, so that I can do either. I teach fifth grade and when we start the year, I assign two per week, and then, as we add more skills and strategies and students become more comfortable with them, usually around mid-October, I add another, and when we come back from winter break in January, students start to complete 4 logs per week. 

Reading Logs as Assessment

I look at reading logs as an informal assessment. As I mentioned above, student responses alert me to what I need to do next. Did the log indicate mastery with all skills and strategies that were addressed? Does the student struggle with the narrative elements log and not the predicting one? As a teacher, it's my job to use these logs to assist me in making decisions for remediation. I find them to be a valuable assessment tool when planning my reading instruction, especially when it comes to guided reading. I do take the time to sit down and read them all, because if I'm not, why on Earth am I assigning it? I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it doesn't take time, but I will say that it's worth it, especially when you get that one in front of you that blows you away, the one that you can't wait to show the entire class on Monday, because it is THAT awesome! It's important to highlight those amazing logs weekly to keep reminding students of your expectations, and equally important to highlight many different students so that it is clear that everyone is equally capable of meeting those expectations.

Take-Aways

Look at your reading logs. Ask yourself, "What information can I gather from this assignment?" If the answer is nothing, or you find it's so minimal an amount that you are cringing, rid yourself of them and create something new. I'm including a link to mine below, but I'm not very good at promotion, so I'll say that as a teacher, you know what you need. Don't be afraid to create something yourself. You'll be much happier when you can look at your logs and know that you have a valuable resource in front of you. 

Click on the image above to preview my independent reading logs.

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A Gift for Your Favorite Character Reading Assignment

I'm constantly looking for new ways to assess my students' comprehension, especially when it comes to independent reading. I love my tic-tac-toe reading response boards, but I don't want students to grow tired of them so at least once a quarter, I like to throw in something different.

In December (oh yes, I know it's February, but I'm in catch-up mode), my teammate and I were in need of a fun in-class assignment that would keep students engaged as they counted down the days until the winter break. We were also in great need of a bulletin board. I don't know why, but the need for a bulletin board really gets my wheels turning! Since we were focusing on narrative elements, I thought it would be great to narrow in on characters. After tossing the idea around a bit, I came up with A Gift for Your Favorite Character.

For this assignment, students were asked to choose a favorite character from the book that they were reading independently and think about a gift that they would give to that character. Of course, it couldn't be just ANY gift, it had to be a gift that was specific to that character based on what they had learned from their reading. They had to choose a character and explain why they chose that character first. Then they had to share the gift that they chose and explain why they chose what they did for their character.

When I shared the assignment, my students were super excited! I was looking for engagement, and I really got it. I was really impressed with how well my students did with the assignment. Here's a peek at a few:

Now, we did this at Christmas time, but the great thing about this is that you could really do it anytime. I loved how awesome our bulletin board looked with our Christmas theme, but I would definitely do it during any season! I hung their decorated "gifts" on top, with the gift inside, and the writing paper hanging below. We had lots of compliments from other staff that stopped to read them!

You can find my creation in my TpT store by clicking the image below!

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