Normal library classes!

I told a class today that we were finally having normal library classes after a week of expectations and teaching about the Ridgecrest Way (PBIS), then a week of SRI testing, but there really are no normal library classes.  I think I meant that we could do what I wanted us to do, whether it was reading stories and discussing them, learning how to use programs, or just having time to talk about the books we have been reading.

This week I am teaching some classes how to access the Scholastic Reading Counts quiz program.  Some teachers use it to help monitor independent reading, but over the past six or seven years we have slowly decreased our dependence on computerized testing when evaluating independent reading.  I'm proud that our teachers take the time to get to know their kids and help them set reasonable goals (not always point-based, but based on other factors, such as how many books they might be able to read in a trimester, individualized).  But I'm most proud that our teachers have found alternate ways to monitor their students' reading, allowing them multiple ways to show that they read and understood a selection of books, not every book they read, but a selection, as a formative assessment.

We have talked a lot about formative assessments in our pre-school building meetings, and I think we are all speaking the same language now when it comes to this type of assessment.  Being able to see AR/SRC quizzes as one type of formative assessment reduces the impulse to use it exclusively as an independent reading measure, and decreases the chance that teachers will want students to take quizzes on every single book they read.

I read many articles and books about student motivation this summer, hoping to find a way to reach every student and help them to be better readers, and one idea stuck with me all summer:  Think about how we read and discuss books as adults.  We don't take a quiz after we finish reading a book, we find other people who have read it or who are interested in that book or author or subject, and we discuss what we have read.  We recommend books to each other, we talk about what made us sad or happy or scared, and what other connections we made with the characters, settings, plot points, etc.  This is how we expect our students will interact with books and people as adults, so let's encourage them to interact this way as students.  Knowing whether or not they comprehend their reading is a key part of knowing if they are effective independent readers, but how we measure that is flexible and formative, not never-ending and summative.

I look forward to seeing how teachers use Reading Counts this year, and how we can help each other find even more ways to know how our students are choosing and reading books.