Personalized Reading & The 40-Book Challenge
I believe it is necessary that all students in my classes are challenged and work toward growth. In a classroom with a diverse body of students, and with students reading at different levels, this becomes difficult when only reading whole-class novels. That is why I believe it is essential to strike a balance between teacher-assigned reading material and students-chosen material.
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In my classroom, students become familiar with their own reading levels by analyzing their own MAP results and/or ReadTheory data. They then choose to read books that are of interest to them and that also are sure to challenge them. I tell students that the "perfect book" is one that, within the first two pages, has two or three "difficult" words for them. Any less, and they aren't being challenged enough. Any more, and the book may be discouraging to them.
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Every day that we meet, students read for ten to twenty minutes, during which I confer with students, asking them tiered-level reading questions, based on Bloom's Taxonomy and each student's strengths and weaknesses, encouraging students to grow in their own reading skills. To make sure that students are reading in a variety of genres, I incorporate the 40-Book Challenge, which asks students to choose books of their reading level in several different genres, thus exposing them to multiple modes of writing. They track their individual progress through the 40-Book Challenge using the tracker pictured on the left and reflect on their progress throughout each trimester, using the rubric above.
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