Last year I decided I wanted a fun way to encourage our students to read. They have a scheduled class Library visit once a week. They are allowed to have 2 books checked out at a time. However, I noticed that was the only time I was seeing kids in the Library. A few of them came to get new books here and there at various other times, but by and large the only time I see the children is during there weekly visit.
I had originally thought would having them make a bookshelf in the school walls to see how long we could make the line. But the architecture of the school doesn’t have a long continuous hallways. Plus, I was afraid students would compare how many books they had on the wall versus their classmates. I wanted a way that was equal because students in each grade are at varying reading levels, especially since we have a high percentage of English Language Learners/English as a Second Language Students (ELL/ESL).
Over the summer I discovered a kit Highsmith sells (or sold, when I ordered it they only had 6 in stock. I am not sure if its discontinued or not) that went along with a book they sell called “Fire Up for Reading.” The idea is that the kids at a scale to the Dragon for every 30 minutes they read. I immediately fell in love with the idea because it fits in culturally (since we are in Asia) and is an equalizer because I count the aggregate number of minutes versus the number of books.
So the first week of school I have the kids calendars to keep track of the number of minutes and so far they’ve done great. The older grades did a better job of keeping track than the younger ones, but I suspect after seeing the progress of the Dragon so far, I’m sure next week will see a lot more counting.
I’ll post pictures of the Dragon from the first week soon.
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