The Reading Big Board (RBB) serves many purposes in our English classroom, but the primary purpose is to take the place of a Reading Log. It's been my experience that reading logs take the fun out of independent reading for students, despite the fact that they can serve as valuable data collection tools for teachers.
In full disclosure, many of the ideas here have been iterated over time with adaptations from colleagues, conference presenters and my own students.
The first iteration of the RBB came from a desire to make independent reading public in my classroom. A colleague had sectioned off his white board with tape and each student wrote the name of their Independent Reading book and the start date. It was easy to see what everyone was reading and how long it was taking.
The next iteration came when we switched from the white board to slips of paper. This gave the benefit of being able to keep an archive of all books read across the year. It also allowed me to grab the stack and talk to parents at conferences about which books the students were reading and at which pace. Students also were able to rate the books, which helped other students book shop by seeing which books were popular.
That was a valuable tool, my students said. They liked being able to see what each other was reading, but as soon as a new book slip was filled out, the rating from the previous slip disappeared underneath. "Why not make a change so we can see the rating of the finished book and the new book?" asked a student. Another change was made.
One of the best changes was made when I noticed that a student used her alligator clips in the "upside-down" position. It instantly made a huge impact. The packets laid flat on the board, and took up less space. My shorter students rejoiced as the stack moved down the bulletin board!
Based on the advice of Penny Kittle, I added a sign-in sheet to track pages read. Instead of taking attendance, my students sign in with the current page number of their independent reading book.
In sum, our Reading Big Board allows us to do the following things:
In full disclosure, many of the ideas here have been iterated over time with adaptations from colleagues, conference presenters and my own students.
The first iteration of the RBB came from a desire to make independent reading public in my classroom. A colleague had sectioned off his white board with tape and each student wrote the name of their Independent Reading book and the start date. It was easy to see what everyone was reading and how long it was taking.
The next iteration came when we switched from the white board to slips of paper. This gave the benefit of being able to keep an archive of all books read across the year. It also allowed me to grab the stack and talk to parents at conferences about which books the students were reading and at which pace. Students also were able to rate the books, which helped other students book shop by seeing which books were popular.
That was a valuable tool, my students said. They liked being able to see what each other was reading, but as soon as a new book slip was filled out, the rating from the previous slip disappeared underneath. "Why not make a change so we can see the rating of the finished book and the new book?" asked a student. Another change was made.
One of the best changes was made when I noticed that a student used her alligator clips in the "upside-down" position. It instantly made a huge impact. The packets laid flat on the board, and took up less space. My shorter students rejoiced as the stack moved down the bulletin board!
Based on the advice of Penny Kittle, I added a sign-in sheet to track pages read. Instead of taking attendance, my students sign in with the current page number of their independent reading book.
UPDATE: I have stopped doing this and now only track page numbers when I'm conferring and I just use the Big Board slips to measure finished books, along with a reflection every three weeks.
In sum, our Reading Big Board allows us to do the following things:
- Publicize our independent reading
- Book shop by seeing what our peers are reading and their ratings
- Track progress of books being read
- Archive our reading life over the course of the year
- (Combined with page number sign-in) track reading rates
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