I've finished moving things around, re-alphabetizing the shelves and setting up my office in an effecient manner, I hope. I've also been working on a project to get our 5th graders reading more chapter books and series titles. When students come back on the 4th it will be like the beginnng of library classes all over as I show them where everything is located and how the computer system works. For the first time students will have access to good, fast computers and be able to look up books using Destiny. As we go through all these changes I want to emphasize reading, naturally and am going to put forth a challenge to them. Beginning with with the fifth grade it will look something like this.
1. For each book they read that I've read they will receive 15 points.
2. For each book on my recommended list (see left side bar "don't leave 5th grade w/out reading these) they will also receive 10 points.
3. For each book in a series they will receive another 10 points and if they read at least three in a series they will double their total.
4. The goal is to get to 70 points. Invitations to a library pizza party will be given out to 50 point students.
Does this sound too complicated? This is meant to encourage them to read but yet not be accelerated reader. I have a list of series titles and it has varying reading levels on it so if not a strong reader you could read Ron Roy's Capital Mysteries or Emily Rodda's Fairy Realm and still receive 10 points. On the other end of the spectrum they could be reading The Lightning Thief or the Erin Hunter writing team's new Seekers series.
Let me know what you think or how I could tweak this idea???
2 comments:
I think this is a good idea. Some kids are competitive and need a challenge and some need to be externally motivated by something like a pizza party to do something at first. Then hopefully they will (a) get hooked on reading (b) become better readers because they are spending more time reading. I think some kids (especially boys) just need to find the right kinds of books to get hooked on reading. Once they realize there are books about whatever their passion is, that is what makes the difference.
i would love to see the "don't leave 5th grade without reading" list! i have a voracious reader who is a 5th grader. so glad you are sharing great books with the world. thanks, lynn jandlalsup@sbcglobal.net
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