I am having reading logs work for me for the first time - after 5 years of bombing because there was no accountability. I attended the Teaching of Reading Institute at Teachers College (NYC) this summer and learned so much about how to plan for and encourage independent reading and thinking about reading. An "a ha" moment for me was how TC uses the reading log. Kids record their in-school and at-home reading. The log comes to every reading conference (I hit each kid twice/week) and it is used as an assessment tool. Basically, TC's research shows that kids (at any level) should read 3/4's a page per minute (if they are reading at their independent level - TC ins big on level books) this equals 20 pages per 30 minutes. So it is easy to figure what they should be reading in a week. Then at the end of the month the kids total up in school and at home reading and compare to previous month. The MAIN thing is that the log has to be valued by the teacher and used for discussion about reading goals and achievement regularly. Fire off questions if this isn't clear. Meg
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