Reading Races

As a special education teacher, data is my jam. I love it! Who knew that all of those statistic classes back in high school and college (I think I took 4) would seriously be what I do a majority of the time. You may have heard that data drives instruction or something of that sort. I am a believer. You can’t say that something works or doesn’t unless you actually collected the data to see.

One reason I love data so much is because it helps me reflect on my teaching. Sometimes I have no idea if my students are getting it or if I’m making any sense to them at all. When I test them before and after lessons and on their goals I can see if what I am doing in the classroom weekly is actually making a difference. It’s awesome to get that feedback and be able to collect it all on your own.

Now to our super fun reading race. Unfortunately, a lot of my students tend to struggle or dislike reading all together. In order to get them excited I have them all work together to read 100 books. Once they reach that goal as a team they get a super sweet treat like donuts or cookies.

Last year I started doing team goals and found out how amazing they help my classroom run and for my students to be excited about that topic. When you give your classroom a goal to work on together they feel obligated to help each other and cheer each other on. It’s amazing to watch a student who couldn’t read at the beginning of the year become my reading helper who goes around and helps others read.

I also want all of my students to help each other. With a class goal everyone is working towards it and there are no comparisons of you’re at a 2nd grade level but I”m only at a 1st grade level. Instead they know as long as they can pass a fluency quiz on their book they are golden, no matter what level they are reading at. At the end of the day, I want my students to love reading and want to push themselves to become better.

I also started doing this flag idea for the reading race this year because 1) it looks nice and modern and 2) I just have to move a clip when they reach the next level. Below the reading race I have a whiteboard where students put tally marks on when they pass a book. I also have the prize written below that states what they will win when they reach 100 books read. My students already made their goal once this year so I wrote 100 on the board so they know that we are on our 2nd round of the reading race.

I can’t lie, it is super exciting when they get close to 100 and how much they want to read. They will constantly be asking me if they can read a book to win the prize and I am so excited that they want to read.

I hope this gives you a fun way to create a class goal whatever it may be you think your students need to collectively work on.

Happy Teaching :)