TRACKING STUDENTS READING PROGRESS

One of the biggest things I’ve been struggling with this year is how to get my dang students to read! Does anyone else have trouble with this too? I don’t know if it’s just the students I have, or the fact they’re in 5th grade and don’t care any more, but man it is like pulling teeth to get them to finish a book.

One of the ways I am trying to bribe my students to read is through tracking their own progress...and yes giving out rewards for reading books. I know some teachers or parents don’t feel like kids should be given rewards for reading because they should just ‘love it’ and they should be motivated by it on their own. Guess what? They’re not. I hate to break it to your perfect little world, but not all kids will be motivated to read just because they found a good book.

So, if it means I give them a little piece of candy, put their name in the jar, and they get to work for some prizes just for finishing a book so be it! It’s 2020, we’re all just trying to survive!

Anyways, I created this Tower of Books Challenge for my students to track their reading. At the beginning of the year, I had my students write down a goal they had for how many books they were going to read or how many points on reading counts they would get. 

Each of the books on the sheet counts for 150 pages, because for fifth graders, we expect them to start reading longer books. If they read a 300 page book, they would color in 2 books on the tower. You could totally adjust this for your class or student though for their needs!

Once they finish a book, they use the app ReadingCounts to look up their book and they have to pass (70% or more right). After they’ve done that, then they can show me and they add their book to their list! I color coordiante mine based on the genre they read. I love seeing the books they like as well as encouraging them to try new genres/series throughout the year!

Like I mentioned above, I use bribery and I am not ashamed whatsoever. Every time they finish a book, they also get to put their name in the drawing for the week and I pull a certain amount of kids names at the end of the week to pick out a prize from my prize bin.

It obviously doesn’t motivate every kid, but at the end of each week the ones who haven’t been ready definitely feel bad about not being in the drawing!

Want to steal this sheet to use for your own kids? Click here!