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Setting personal reading goals | Building Your Library | 3-5, 6-8, 9-10, 11-12

Student Objective

Students will be able to:
1. set personal reading goals
2. reflect and share insights and interest in various texts
3. visually track progress toward a set goal

Instructions

This instructional idea can span various lengths of time. Students will be setting and tracking individual reading goals, so this can be set up as a year-long activity, or take place over a shorter amount of time in a reading “sprint”. Please adapt based on unique classroom needs!

Step 1: Setting a reading goal

Instruct students to individually set a goal of reading a certain number of texts (e.g., online articles, young adult literature, short stories, etc.) over a period of time (e.g., a month, semester, or school year). Inform students they will be tracking their progress and enjoyment of each text. Introduce students to the reading log EdTech the class will utlize to track their progress. We recommend either of the following options:

Biblionasium: Teachers can create a class for their students to join. Students can then use the website as a place to log the texts they read as well as make suggestions to their classmates.

My Weekly Reading Log: Students can copy this reading log made in Google Slides to their Google Drive and then use to it record the books they read along with additional information.

Step 2: Tracking student progress

In the reading log, students write an entry for each text that includes a citation for the text and their review of it, which includes what they liked and did not like about the text. By reviewing the texts after they read them, students can look back and see which texts they enjoyed, which may increase their motivation to meet their reading goal!

Teachers can instruct students to use the following resources to find texts to read to meet their goals:

Lexile Find a Book: Teachers can direct students to this resource to help them locate books that are on their reading level and match their interests.
Student News Daily: Students can browse this website to locate articles of interest, as an alternative to reading books.

Step 3: Sharing and reflecting

Teachers can review the students’ reading logs and have mini-conferences with them about their reading progress and reviews. Teachers can also set aside class time for students to share their favorite texts with their classmates.

Justification

This instructional idea has students set their own reading goal, which includes how much they will read along with the type(s) of texts they will read. Students will then leverage technology for keeping their log that they can share with their teacher and/or classmates.

EdTech used in this activity:

Google Slides

Alternative Ed Tech you could use:

Student News Daily, My Weekly Reading Log, Lexile Find a Book, Biblionasium