Tracking Reading-- Leading by Example

Donalyn Miller says, "Without question, I am a better teacher because I read." I need my students to know that I am reading just as much as I'm asking them to read. I need them to see me as a resource for finding great books. I want them to see that sometimes I struggle through an uninteresting book  and that I don't always read a book all the way through before I start another one. This comes through in conversations that we have, but it also needs to be visual and obvious. We can't always talk about it and I sometimes am so focused on what I'm teaching that I forget to use my own experiences to help guide what we're doing. So here's how I make sure my students see my progress, too.

On my board, next to the date, I have two columns: "Mrs. Folkman is reading" and "Mrs. Folkman is writing." This helps my students see that I'm right there with them. In previous years, I simply listed titles and page numbers for each day, but I've found that this visual works a lot better. I print a small picture of the cover and each day that I make reading progress in a book, I add the new page number under a new line. This helps students see the size of chunks that I read, that they are sometimes much larger and sometimes much smaller. That some days I focus on reading one book and not another. That the book we're reading for leadership team is read in small chunks throughout the semester and I'll read it in those chunks instead of reading ahead so that I can better discuss it. When I finish a book, the picture stays the remainder of that week and then moves over to my bulletin board where I keep my progress sheet for the year which is exactly like the sheet I require them to use. It's essentially the Atwell chart from In the Middle.

The visuals of the book covers help them see the books stack up. The list always gets longer and longer each year, but it's really easy to overlook a piece of paper. I also display the books I've finished on the board ledge for a while so that if students take an interest, the books are easy to find.

[edit: clarification made, photo added]