In my last blog post I shared about my mission to build a strong independent reading community in my middle school classroom and this week I want to share some ways that I assess independent reading. I give a lot of time to reading in my classroom, but I also need to assess the thinking that students are doing! I know that asking my students to track their reading on reading logs or giving multiple choice quizzes will kill any interest in independent reading pretty quickly, so I use other ways to assess student reading and thinking.
Reading conferences
This is the easiest way for me to assess the thinking my students are doing during their reading. I usually start the conference with a simple prompt:
‘Tell me about your reading.’
I love this simple invitation because it indicates to the student that I’m not looking for a specific answer. Depending on what the student shares, I ask questions that help me assess the standards I’ve been teaching. I focus my questions on the standards because I may not have read the book the student is reading, but I can tell if they are thinking about characterization, theme development, etc. based on our conversation. It isn’t the only time I’ll assess students, so I don’t get into the weeds with questioning. Conferences hold students accountable for their reading and offer another opportunity for assessment, and that is important to me. I have free reading conference question cards in my TPT store if you are interested!
Reader Notebooks
This week I gave time to setting up our notebooks and personalizing them with stickers. Then I explicitly taught my students why we use reader notebooks and how that writing can go.
Readers notebooks are for students to explore their thinking and help them hold onto ideas from reading session to reading session. My students are taking in a lot of information from the time they leave my classroom until the time they enter it the next day, making the notebook even more important in helping students hold on to the thinking they are doing in their reading. Students often start with lean notes such as summaries and jots about character or conflict, but I’ll teach them how to create notebook pages to help them analyze big ideas they have about their reading, such as theories about themes, characterization, vocabulary, and more.
Analysis Activities
Teaching students how to analyze their reading is an ongoing process. It can be challenging because there are so many opportunities and ideas worth looking closely at within a text, and for middle school readers that can be overwhelming.
I teach the classic literary analysis essay during the first semester but to help students practice thinking analytically I have developed an analysis activity choice board that they can choose from when reading independently. This allows students choice in their assignment, scaffolds their analytical thinking skills leading up to the literary analysis essay, and provides another way to assess independent reading.
I use this choice board at the beginning of the school year with my first 10 days of school unit, where we build the foundations for reading workshop and independent reading, but also throughout the school year when I incorporate mini independent reading units. I find that giving students time to choose their text several times a year is a nice balance between whole class texts and book club units.
How do you assess independent reading in your classroom? Share your ideas with us below or come join me on Instagram @the.transformational.classroom.