"Best" Young Adult novels?

Have you seen Time Magazine's list of 100 Best Young Adult novels of all time? I looked over the list this morning. And then, because reading YA fiction is a passion of mine, I read it again, keeping score: I've read 70 of the 100 on the list. That's pretty good I think. 

I wondered why some books were on the list, and why other books weren't. It seemed like "young adult" had a pretty wide age range, from Charlotte's Web (a typical third grade novel) to Little Women, which I seriously doubt was written with young adults in mind. There were a lot of classics, and books that I read as a kid that haven't aged very well. For example, although I love the word play in The Phantom Tollbooth, I've tried to use that book with fifth graders who look at me askance when Milo receives a toy car as a gift (too babyish) and then later with confusion as he journeys through the Tollbooth into the bizarre and random world on the other side. The Wind in the Willows falls into this category too, I think-- the language is too advanced for the target audience.

Another title I have a hard time with is Harry Potter. OK, granted, it's a good story and it was a fresh idea when it came out. But J. K. needed some serious editing help as the books went on to make them tighter and less rambly. Is part of the criteria for inclusion on the "Best" list that it made an impact on young readers? If so, I'll give it the thumbs up; but if it's about "best" as in "good writing", I'd give it a thumbs down. Same for Twilight-- seriously? The writing is repetitive and boring! But it did influence the YA world to open up to paranormal fantasy.

Here are three books I would have liked to see on that list:

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. This book tells a three-layered tale: Sal's cross-country car journey with her grandparents to visit her missing mother (present), Sal's adventures with her next-door neighbor as they try to solve a mystery (recent past), and Sal's life with her mother leading up to her disappearance (further past). The complexity of the plot, which weaves seamlessly together, the fun word-play, scenes that are laugh-out-loud funny and tissue-soaking sad, and lovable characters all combine to make this my #1 favorite young adult novel.

 

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Six-year-old Ender is sent to Flight

School to learn how to be a soldier and fight the "Buggers" to save the planet. Several issues get attention within this novel: standing up to bullies, empathy for others who are different, working to find your personal best, powerful people manipulate and use the powerless, teamwork and friendship, the value of family.
 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This may fall into the "not written with young adults in mind" category, but it is certainly appropriate for the older end of the audience. Two rival magicians pit their innocent young apprentices in a competition against each other with surprising and delightful results. I loved the fresh new ideas within this novel, which was told in a "can't put it down" compelling style.

What are your favorite young adult novels? Did they show up on Time's list? If not, which ones would you have recommended?

Using Booksource's Classroom Organizer with My Classroom Library

Today I want to put a plug in for a great new tool I've started using with my classroom library: Booksource's Classroom Organizer. This is a free book check-out system that also generates handy teacher reports.

All set up and reports can be managed via the teacher page:

The first thing to do to get things set up is to import your classroom inventory using an Excel spreadsheet. You can choose which categories to include for the books. It's easy to add additional titles individually once the big bulk of the inventory is imported.

Then you need to add students to your list so they have permission to check out (and check in) books electronically. They can do this from the student page:

Admittedly, the graphic is a bit elementary for eighth grade, but the tool is worth it. So far, students have been very responsible about using the system independently (once I posted all the login information in two or three places around the room). One super nice feature is that students will get an email every three weeks reminding them that they have a particular book checked out. This frees me up from looking at the hand-scrawled sign-out paper and trying to monitor that myself. Often just this little reminder is enough to get them to return the book to the library.

I haven't used the teacher reports much yet, since we've only been in school a month. Here are the options









This is my favorite report, Current Books Checked Out. This also gets sent to me automatically via email every three weeks so I can keep track.











This is what the Student Checkout Detail looks like for one prolific reader. I can see he is a dystopian reader mostly, but graphic novels also catch his attention.

I've been very pleased with the hand-off nature of the Classroom Organizer system. There is still an honor system in place for kids to actually do the check-in/check-out process instead of just walking out with a book. But it's no worse that it was before. The Classroom Org. system takes a little time to get set up, but their tech support people were super helpful when I ran into a glitch. For teachers who are trying to track students' reading lives, levels of text complexity, variety of genres, or volume, I highly recommend this system.

Checking In On My Classroom Library Goal

I read 54 young adult books this school year (so far-- still 5 school weeks to go!), almost all of them from my classroom library. I expanded my classroom library by about 120 books this year, and made a professional goal to do a better job using the library as a teaching tool to encourage independent home reading. Reading is my passion, and I enjoyed reading almost all of the YA books, so I certainly don't view the task as a chore. Sometimes I read so fast, or the plot is so ordinary, that I forget I've read it. That's why I keep track on my Shelfari shelf. That's also how I know I've read 54 books this school year (so far). 

I like making my reading life visible to the kids. Some kids regularly look at my Shelfari and get suggestions from it. I also periodically put up a bulletin board called "Ms. Pohl's 5-Star Favorites" with book covers of those books, and then I display those same books on the tops of the bookshelves. I prop the books I recently read on a shelf by my desk before I re-shelve them. 

But the best part of this project is when I see a student browsing the shelf, and I ask, "Do you need a suggestion?" When the answer is yes, I love to ask, "What kind of book do you like?" or "What did you read recently that you really liked?" so that I can follow up with "Then you might like this one [as I pluck the book off the shelf] or this one [pluck]. I liked this one because..." And when I'm really on my game, I might say, "I thought of you when I was reading this because I know you enjoyed reading..." 

I'm getting better at the "If you liked this one, you might like that one" game. What I still need to work on is the "If you felt comfortable reading this one, you should try that one because it's slightly more challenging". This is more difficult, the push into greater text complexity. I am still reading the YA books with the lenses of 1) Is this a good story? and 2) Who would like this? I need to add a third lens: What is the work that kids would need to do in this book? What makes this book easy or complex?

If I have some lead time, I can come back with a suggestion that includes increasing text complexity. That's why I like having kids use Shelfari as their reading log. I can look at their shelf, consult the complexity guides (either Scholastic Book Wizard or the Lexile site), return to my inventory, and suggest a book that is similar to what they are reading AND is somewhat more complex. When it's on the fly, I'm less confident I will pick a book that will be at the appropriate level.

My goal of building book ladders and using the library as a teaching tool has made progress. I'm happy about getting familiar with the books in the library and having some tools set up to help me make better suggestions. With practice, I will be able to nudge more kids into harder books. For now, though, I'm ready to pick up #55!

p.s. I also read 18 adult books this year. Not too shabby!

Making Values Visible

Last week I was the Middle School rep on the Strategic Planning Task Force for our school. The SPTF consisted of representatives from all stakeholder groups: school board members, administration, teachers, parents, and students. As a group, we reflected on our school's mission and belief statements, identified values, and wrote strategic goals with indicators. 

Conversations were rich and varied as we each approached the tasks with our own biases and perspectives. Amazingly, there was very little bickering about what is important to us as a community. I found this to be a positive sign that we have a shared view of what our school wants to be, and that we are consistent in moving toward that vision. 

Today, I read a blog post by Christopher Lehman, a member of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project of Columbia University, called "Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve (and Walls and Actions and)" (Feb. 10, 2014). In this post, Chris challenges us to take a critical look at our school and see if what we value is reflected on the bulletin boards, in our teaching, and in our communications. He specifically suggests:

"Step back and take a look:

• When you look around your classroom, what do you see the most of?  Is it what you value?

• When you look through your students notebook and folders, what does their work say to you? Do you see evidence of why you are an educator? Evidence of why you love what you teach?

• When you walk through the hallways of your school, what do classrooms and displays have in common? Can you see the heart of your community or is it unclear?

• If you talk with your colleagues, is your community’s heart visible in conversations?"

Lehman's challenge made me connect back to the Strategic Planning conversations and wonder: If I were an outsider taking a tour around our school, what values would I see reflected? Would I be able to see the same things that the SPTF identified? So I took a look.

The walls of my classrooms display lots of books. One bulletin board is devoted to book recommendations from other students and me. Shelves hold books both spine out and face out, and book holders display recommended books on tops of surfaces. Signs promoting themes, genres, and lifelong reading surround these displays. I think it's obvious I value reading.

Another bulletin board displays anchor charts from our current English Language Arts unit. These stay up throughout the unit because students refer back to them for strategies while they work on their personal projects. Surrounding these charts are signs with the enduring understandings and essential questions for the unit. This board shows that we are a community of learners and that learning is a process. 

A third bulletin board holds posters, vocabulary words, and a timeline for Social Studies. Enduring understandings and essential questions are posted alongside the visual display. The most interactive piece is the timeline, to which events are added as students learn about them. To be honest, this board shows that I have materials related to the topic, but it is mostly a display for decoration more than anything else. Perhaps this board shows that I value a decorated classroom!

As I walk through the hallways of the middle school, I see a lot of photos of students engaged in learning or service activities as well as displays of student work. I see posters advertising upcoming service initiatives. I see announcements and schedules. I see art projects and the student newspaper. I see recycling bins and trash cans. These displays reflect our community's focus on student learning, service, and the need for middle school students to stay organized!

I feel pretty good about how our school wears its heart on its sleeve. Our building is old and not particularly attractive, but we know what we hold dear and we show that in our displays. We are proud of our students and their achievements. The SPTF identified areas for growth and improvement, and as a reflective and forward-thinking institution, we will meet our targets.

In the meantime, I need to re-think my Social Studies bulletin board!

Matching Data, Kids, and Books

My professional goal this year is to set up my classroom library as a teaching tool to support students into reading more complex texts. I have already done some work on this (and blogged about it): completed inventory with guided reading/lexile levels indicated when available, book ladders developed in several genres based on TCRWP lists, and a home reading expectation with regular accountability check-ins. A couple weeks ago I took the next step.

I was home for a sick day, one of those days where you're not all that sick, but you know going into school would be a very bad idea. I decided I would use my long quiet day to do some work with my new book ladders. I had three data points to work with: January MAP Reading data (especially suggested Lexile range), January reading log via Shelfari (www.shelfari.com) which allowed me to identify the book(s) students read during the month, and my knowledge of the kids at this point in the year.

After I captured the MAP data and the Shelfari books, I took a look at my book ladders to make a suggestion for a next book to read. This is where my knowledge of the kids came in. 

image from goodreads.com

I noticed one student who scored relatively low on the MAP was reading books like From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Level S, Lexile 700) and Charlotte's Web (Lexile 680). His MAP score suggested he should read books in the 897-1040 range. It seemed to me that he was a kid who is not very confident in his reading, and is relying on books he'd read in the past, or felt comfortable to him. If I look purely at the Lexiles of these books, I notice he's actually not too far off of his recommended range (at the lower end). So putting books in his hand that are not a huge jump up in complexity (to maintain the comfort level), but that are more 8th grade appropriate, seemed the way to go. Since From the Mixed Up Files is a mystery, I thought he might like to keep going with that genre. I suggested he read Silent to the Bone (also by E. L. Konigsburg), which is Level V, Lexile 810. This gives him a jump up in level and maturity of text, but keeps him with a familiar author and genre. 

image from paperbackswap.com

On the other end of the spectrum, I noticed one of my best readers had been reading Scorpia Rising (Lexile 780), and I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic (unrated). His MAP suggested he read books in the 1275-1425 range. My knowledge of this boy along with this data tells me that he is a huge soccer fan, reads nonfiction as well as fiction, is interested in current events because we had a long conversation about Nelson Mandela's recent death, and would prefer to do other more active things than read. My suggestion for him was Nelson Mandela's biography No Easy Walk to Freedom (X/990). Although the guided reading level is low for him, the Lexile gets him closer to his suggested range. I also know that he is not going to independently read something that is at his suggested high Lexile level, usually either classic texts or primary source documents. He needs something interesting or he'll put it down in a hurry.

I did this for each student, and sent each of them an email with my suggestion. A few wrote back and said they'd already read it. Others thanked me and said they'd been looking for something new to read. And for the next few days, books were flying out of my classroom library.

Granted, this process took me several hours. I don't have the time to do this every month. However, if I can keep some of my lower kids reading (priority #1) more complex books (priority #2), this should support their progress across the year. In addition, if I can help my higher level kids read books they find interesting AND challenging (most books at the 8th grade level are around the 700-800 lexile level), their more advanced reading skills can be challenged as well.

Book Ladders Part III

Here it is, December already. Nearly half the school year has passed. In that time, we have made some progress with our classroom library/book ladder/text complexity project. Here's an update:

• Only 3 of the 6 of us chose this work as our professional goal this year. Two others wanted to dig into our new school-wide communication and grading system, Veracross. One other wanted to start a blog after going to a tech conference. I have to admit that I am disappointed. Without a departmental goal that all can work with, we have lost a lot of cohesion. 
• The grades 7 and 8 classroom libraries have been inventoried and leveled. Except for my own inventory, which I did myself, our Teaching Assistant tackled that job. There are holes and errors, which teachers are just now discovering, but it definitely saved hours of their time to have her do it.
• We downloaded the book lists from the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project site. Each genre or thematic list is arranged with titles from most simple to most complex within a leveling system, first the guided reading A-Z system, and then the Lexile system. 
• We highlighted the books we already have on that list (well, our TA did that part too, again with some holes and errors but still worth it).
• Since it is ordering time, we ordered books that fell between our current books on the list to fill out book ladders for next year.
• From the current and order list, we created a couple of book ladders that reflect the books in our classroom libraries.

I want to talk about that process a little bit. The TCRWP Fantasy book list is a long one that jumbles all kinds of fantasy together, from classic fantasy books like Eregon, to paranormal fantasy like City of Bones, to science fiction like Divergent. This made putting a book ladder together using just the TC list difficult and confusing, especially since kids tend to stick to one sub-genre for a while.

So on our Professional Development Day last week, the three of us sat down in my classroom to make a dystopian novel book ladder. This is a genre that many of our kids are reading right now, and we share a lot of the same titles on our shelves. It seemed a logical place to start.

Image found on olx.in website

With the classroom library inventory opened on our computers, we pulled as many science fiction dystopian books that we knew off the shelf and piled them on a table (there are probably more, but I haven't read all the books on my shelf yet!). Then we got sticky notes and we labeled the books based on our inventory's leveling information. Sometimes that level was a guided reading letter (T-Z), sometimes it was a Lexile score (usually between 650-850), and sometimes both.

Because we are hands-on, visual people, we lined up the books that had letter levels first, from easiest to hardest. Next, we slipped the Lexiled books into the line where they seemed to fit. Then we took a step back and frowned. Should the Shadow Children series (level Z) (e.g., Among the Hidden) be higher than Insurgent (Lexile 710) just because it has a dystopian theme? Considering length alone, the Divergent series seemed more challenging, as well as having a more complex plot and more complex characters. And what about Gone (Lexile 620)? It's a massively thick book, but not a complex storyline. Is there more to think about, infer, and discuss in Among the Hidden than Gone? We thought so, and put it behind the Shadow Children books.

In the end, we had a line-up we could live with. Next, we put together book labels for the backs of the books. These said: "If you liked this book, try (the next book in the series, or the next one up the ladder). If this book was not right for you, try (the next one down the ladder or one that is similar in level)." We felt this could give students more self-sufficiency as well as "save face" if they were reading low on the ladder.

Although we had a 3-hour chunk of time to work on this, we only got the one dystopian book ladder done. However, I think we needed to figure out what we were doing and how we would do it before we could get started. Now that we have done the one, we can go on and do others. I think I'll do the Social Justice book lists next, since we just finished that theme in our novel book club unit. Exciting!

Reading Logs as Artifacts of a Reading Life

CC image by Skokie Public Library

September is just about over, meaning that September Reading Logs are about to roll in. Since they were handed out early in the second week of school (the last week of August), students have been to the library to get started on their home reading life, reflected on themselves as readers, made reading goals, and jumped into a unit on reading response and interpretation. They were given the instructions: Read your home book 5 days a week for 20 minutes each time (minimum) and record your reading on your Reading Log (date, title, time started/time ended/total time, page started/page ended/total pages, comment).

I am very much looking forward to seeing these September Reading Logs. They are rich with information about my students, and are filled with areas for reflecting:

1. What books are they reading? This can give me a clue into the types of books students enjoy, making it easier for me to suggest next books.
2. What level of books are they reading? I'd like to record the title of the book each student is reading, and find that book's Lexile and guided reading level (if available). Then I can determine if they are reading above, below, or at "target" (right now, I'm using the lowest Lexile score in the range determined by the fall MAP Reading test). Again, this helps me understand the students' tastes and comfort level, and gives me an insight into what would be a good next book for them.
3. When are they reading? While thinking about ourselves as readers, we read an article from the Atlantic Wire called "What Kind of Book Reader Are You? A Diagnostic Guide" (I edited it down to the most appropriate ones before handing it out). One of the categories is The Sleepy-Time Reader. Not surprisingly, many of my students are Sleepy-Time Readers, reserving their reading for post-homework, post-video game or social networking time, often the last thing to do before falling asleep. We talked a bit about how that could affect their rate, productivity, and comprehension. Some students decided to make it their reading goal to read at other times of the day as a way to grow as a reader. However, I will not be surprised to see "10:30-10:45" or later on some Reading Logs. 
4. How fast are they reading? According to the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project Reading Institute, students should be reading about a page a minute at this age. If they aren't reading that quickly, it could indicate several things: 1) the book is too hard for them-- students could be looking up words or having to reread because they lose comprehension, 2) they are reading at the wrong time of day-- see Sleepy-Time Reader above-- or with too many distractions around, 3) they are just not very interested in the book, or 4) they are not reading enough of the book at one time to get into the story, and therefore need to re-read to pick up the thread before going on. This is a good conversation to have with students when they are reading slowly. Depending on the reason, there is usually a fairly straightforward solution.
5. Are they reading? For some, this is the bottom line question. Unfortunately, some students don't meet the 100 minutes per week minimum. Sometimes it's because they are busy with sports teams or other extracurriculars, leaving little time for homework. Sometimes they have too much other homework, and push reading to the side as a lower priority. Sometimes they just don't like reading. Whatever the reason, this becomes yet another problem-solving conversation to have, first with the student, and if the trend continues, then with the parents.

When students also do this kind of reflecting on their Reading Log, they can see that the log itself helps them to track their reading life and, especially, their reading goal. They might find that they have already reached their reading goal, and there is something else indicated on the Reading Log that needs to be worked out. They might find that they haven't made much (or any) progress toward their reading goal, and they need to keep the goal in mind as they continue their reading next month. If they reflect on their reading habits every month, the Reading Log stays fresh as a data collection tool with a purpose, rather than another piece of homework drudgery. They will be more honest about their reading lives, and it puts the responsibility for growing as a reader right where it needs to be: in the students' own hands.

Tackling the beast: Examining text complexity through the departmental PLC

I have just finished five days of pre-service teacher work days, and kids start after the weekend. My room is organized, my posters are up, my plans for the first units are ready. I am good to go. And then the massive classroom library book order arrived just as I was walking out.

This caused me both great excitement and great anxiety. I am excited about all the new books that will go on our classroom library shelves, but anxious about getting them all processed and organized before the kids walk in. I guess I have some work to do this weekend!

On July 7, I posted about my plan for using my newly expanded library as a tool to support and track text complexity (see "CCSS Reading Literature Standards: How My Classroom LIbrary Supports Text Complexity"). As I was writing up the plan, I realized how much work was embedded there, from the clerical hours of inventorying and leveling the books themselves, to understanding and training in reading assessment, to developing book ladders, to getting comfortable with guided reading levels and Lexiles, to reading lots and lots of the young adult literature that's on the shelves. I realized that this could be a hard sell to my department, a great group of teachers who work hard and already have a lot on their plates.

But I knew those books were arriving, and although we could just celebrate our newly expanded libraries and carry on with our teaching, I knew this was our golden opportunity to tackle this beast. Two years ago, when four of the six of us returned from the Teacher's College Reading Institute, we put aside text complexity and book ladders, knowing we needed to wrap our heads around Reading Workshop and reading notebooks. One year ago, the other two attended the Reading Workshop, and then joined our school. As new teachers, they were definitely not ready for this work. Now that we are feeling more comfortable, we can add on this new text complexity piece.

At our first department meeting on Wednesday, I started by pitching the inventory and leveling part. Although there were some skeptical looks around the leveling-- not why but how-- everyone agreed. It certainly helps that we have a full-time Teaching Assistant assigned to the six of us, and we knew we could pass the bulk of this clerical work onto her. It also helps that at each of the three grade levels there is an experienced and confident teacher who immediately bought into the value of it. The three of us can help support our less experienced and tentative partners.

At our follow-up meeting on Thursday, we agreed on the eight major genres we'd all use when categorizing the books, and what color "dot" we want to affix on the spine to indicate each. We decided that having a consistent labeling system from grades 6 through 8 will help kids get their hands on the books they want more quickly.

I then launched into the rest of the plan, the assessing/planning/book ladder/tracking part. I began with, "Let me share with you some of my thinking about where we could go with this. It could be fairly complex or fairly simple, depending on what we decide we want to do. We have all year to work on this, and it will take time to get everything in place. But mostly I want to know if you think this is work that you want to tackle this year." After I walked through it quickly, the discussion turned into a sharing of "We could do it like this..." and "What if we used this data and did this with it...". No one rejected the plan, condemned it as unworkable, or complained about the amount of work it would take. They agreed that they wanted to do this work.

I am excited about this plan. I know that without the group behind it, I could do a mediocre job in my classroom with my kids. But with everyone behind it, all kids will benefit from it, and our middle school will become a more data-driven, reading centered, student learning centered place.

CCSS Reading Literature Standards: How My Classroom LIbrary Supports Text Complexity

My attention over the past week has been on the CCSS Reading Literature standards, which, to tell the truth, are a bigger stretch than the writing ones. Rather than get overwhelmed by the depth of reading I should be expecting my students to be doing, I focused on something that I felt I could begin to tackle: tracking students' reading lives in order to move them to ever increasingly complex texts. 

Two years ago, when 4 of the 6 of us MS ELA teachers went to the Teacher's College Reading Institute (and the other two went the year afterward), we toyed with the idea of book ladders and tracking for text complexity. However, there was other--bigger--reading work to be done first, and we put the text complexity work on the back burner. Now that we are more comfortable with Reading Notebooks, reading workshop, reading conferences, and choosing texts for our units, we are ready to tackle text complexity.

We already have a robust independent reading expectation in the Middle School. Students at our school are, in general, enthusiastic readers. We have an excellent library with a knowledgeable librarian who is always willing to guide and suggest next reads for students. We ordered nearly 200 books per classroom for this coming fall to refresh and expand our classroom libraries. We teachers know something about the books our kids are reading, and feel comfortable recommending titles when kids need a book in their hands. Our groundwork is set. The opportunity is ripe.

Here is how I would like to see this reading work play out for each of us in the department this coming school year:

Classroom Library Work

• Inventory books: Start with the Amazon order spreadsheet. Add Booksource order books to list and others already on shelves (title, author-last name, first name)
• Determine genre groups: Fantasy (Fantasy: Science Fiction, Fantasy: Paranormal), Realistic Fiction (Realistic Fiction: Suspense/Thrillers, Realistic Fiction: Mystery), Historical Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction (Nonfiction: Autobiography/ Biography/ Memoir), Poetry. Scholastic Book Wizard can check genres. Add to spreadsheet.
• Level books: Use Scholastic Book Wizard to look up Guided Reading Level, and Lexile level. Add to spreadsheet.
• Sort spreadsheet: What organizational structure will best work for your needs? Genre sort? Author sort? Level sort? Combinations?
• Organize library to make it easy for students to find the books they want to read and are at a good level for them.

Moving Students Up Ladders of Text Complexity

• Assess: Here are several ways to find out what level our students are reading at the beginning of the year.
• Ask students to write down one book they read recently (end of previous grade or over the summer) that they feel is a just-right book for them (interesting, easy to read but with enough challenge to keep you thinking). Find that book’s genre/ guided reading/ Lexile level. What plan could you make for that student’s next book to read?
• Consider giving an all-class reading passage with comprehension questions at the level appropriate for the beginning year at your class. TCRWP recommends that students should be reading at the following levels at the beginning of the year: Grade 6: V/W (avg. V), G7: W/X (avg. W), G8 X/Y/Z. Another way to do this is to use students’ spring MAP score to guesstimate a student’s reading level, and give that level of passage to the student instead of the general one. How would this data help you get books into students’ hands?
• Use fall MAP score to determine Lexile level of books to read (approximately). Because Lexile levels reflect only 75% comprehension, we will need to subtract 250 points to find out what Lexile level books the student can read at a 90% comprehension level (independent). According to the CCSS, by the end of the year, students should be reading books at the following Lexile level (I am assuming this level reflects the 75% comprehension target): Grade 6: 925-1070, G7: 970-1120, G8: 1010-1185.
• Fluency: Use early Reading Logs to track students’ fluency rate of pages read per minute. By end of 8th grade, students should read about 1 page per minute. Or have students read silently in their books for 5 minutes, marking where they started and stopped. Then figure out words per minute. TCRWP recommends the following oral reading rates: Level V: 115-150 wpm, Levels W-X-Y: 125-160 wpm, Level Z: 130-165 wpm. If a student is reading very slowly, it may indicate that the reader should be in easier texts or needs fluency support.
• “Red Flag” students: For students who are struggling or are advanced readers, we may want to do a formal running record to find reading level and record fluency, error analysis, and comprehension strengths and gaps. You have the TCRWP Reading Assessment binder in your room to use for this.
• Plan: Now that we have an idea of where a student is at the beginning of the year, what sequence of books can we suggest for each student that will push them to the next level? Consider both guided reading level (complex characters, plot sequence, mature content) and Lexile (long words and sentences). Perhaps a student can move up Lexile while staying at the same guided reading level. Or perhaps a student can move up to the next guided reading level, but at a Lexile level below the student’s target. This way they can work on one aspect at a time, and it won’t be a large jump.
• Use TCRWP book ladders to get recommendations (found in back of Reading Assessment binder). Highlight the books available in the classroom library.
• Should our spreadsheet and book ladders be available for students to see? If they are involved in the goal of moving to increasingly more complex texts, they should have the information needed to make good choices of next books. Make this process transparent.
• Periodic check-ins: How will you sustain this work across the year?