Setting Reading Goals for the New Year with a Growth Mindset

Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for setting New Year’s reading goals will find this post helpful. It includes picture book recommendations for teaching growth mindset and/or supplementing your instruction with exceptional and inspiring read-alouds.

I love to take the opportunity of a brand spankin’ new year to set some reading goals for myself and share them with my students.

This year I will:

• Step out of my comfort zone of contemporary fiction and try something new: perhaps a historical fiction drama, a biography, and/or books of poetry. 
  
• Make time to read with my middle schooler before bed (without his younger brother).
  
• Make a solid dent in my To Be Read list. 

Yes, I can make them specific and measurable and timely and all that detailed, nitty-gritty stuff.

But I prefer to keep it super simple.

For me, super simple = more likely to be attainable.

 It’s also the first year I’ve formally required my students to declare their own reading goals.

They will do this by stating exactly what they want to focus on to help them become better readers.

And finally, we understand that the more we practice the art of reading, the more we grow as readers, as creators, and thinkers, and as characters in our lives. 

Picture Books to Teach a Growth Mindset

Here are my favorite books to introduce at the start of a new year or to introduce or supplement a growth mindset discussion. They feature real people who have overcome tremendous obstacles in following their passions by showing perseverance, tenacity, grit, and grace in the face of adversity.

They also serve as a terrific springboard to discuss that reading is an important, wonderful, magical part of our day—in and out of the classroom. ✨

Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?: The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell

Based on the life of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor, who paved the way for all female doctors to come. In the 1830s, women were supposed to be wives and mothers. Most people believed that women weren’t smart enough or were too weak for such demanding work. Perhaps they could aspire to be teachers or seamstresses, but career options were few. Absolutely no women were doctors! But Elizabeth proved her naysayers wrong when she graduated from Geneva Medical School at the top of her class (outshining her male counterparts!) and went on to have a brilliantly successful career.  

Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah

Emmanuel was born in West Africa with only one deformed leg. His mother believed in him when others dismissed him, treating him like any other child rather than a disabled person. He hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, and at age 13 when his mother became ill, he left home to provide for his family, and eventually became a cyclist. In 2001, he rode for a staggering four hundred miles across Ghana (with one leg!), spreading his powerful message: disability is not inability. Today, Emmanuel continues to work on behalf of the disabled.

Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music

Girls could not be drummers. Not in Cuba. Not in the 1930s. But the Drum Dream Girl longed to play tall congas and small bongós and silvery, moon-bright timbales. She practiced day and night in secret. And at last, when her music was heard, everyone sang and danced and decided that boys and girls should be free to drum and dream. Based on the life of Chinese-Africa-Cuban drummer Milo Castro Zaldarriaga who defied gender roles in the male-dominated Cuban music scene.

Tenacious: Fifteen Adventures Alongside Disabled Athletes

Tenacious introduces us to fifteen extraordinary athletes who use adaptive equipment to reach their goals and live their dreams. Meet Will Groux, a cyclist who suffered a spinal cord injury as a result of a motorcycle accident. He took up wheelchair rugby and road cycling and won three World championship cycling titles. Will, along with the others featured in the book, reveal the daily joys and challenges of life as an athlete with disabilities. Their remarkable achievements will undoubtedly inspire readers and have them cheering in awe and admiration.

The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever

Pioneer Kate Sessions singlehandedly turned San Diego from a dry, barren, colorless desert town into the lush, green, vibrant city it is today. Growing up among the towering pines and redwoods of northern California, Kate was always fascinated by trees and felt the most at peace in the forest. She was the first woman to graduate with a science degree from the University of California at a time when very few women went to college and even fewer were interested in science. After graduating, she took a job as a teacher in San Diego and was dismayed to find the city tremendously lacking in the tree department. Thus she began a tremendous movement to transform the town into the garden-filled oasis it is today. Dubbed “The Mother of Balboa Park”, Kate turned San Diego into the plant-filled haven that its residents and more than 14 million visitors enjoy each year.

Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman

Before she was five years old, polio had paralyzed Wilma Rudolph’s left leg. She spent her youth underweight, sickly, and in a metal brace. Although everyone said she would never walk again Wilma refused to believe it. Her faith, tenacity, and hard work helped her to overcome the odds. Not only did she walk, but she ran—all the way to the 1960 Olympics where she won three gold medals.

Trombone Shorty

A beautiful, lively autobiography about Troy, “Trombone Shorty” Andrews—musical prodigy from New Orleans. Trombone Shorty led his own band at the age of six, slept with his trombone, and followed his dream of becoming a musician despite the odds. Today he is a Grammy-nominated international star who has worked with some of the biggest names in rock, pop, jazz, funk, and hip hop. I dare you not to look him up on YouTube!

Ruby’s Wish

Shirin Yim Bridges tells the story of Ruby, based upon the childhood experiences of her own grandmother, one of the first women to attend college in China. Ruby’s intense desire for learning set her apart from her sisters and girl cousins, who are on the fast track to marriage, babies, and a lifetime of homemaking. But Ruby wanted something different. She wanted to attend university like the boys in her family. An inspirational book to do more and do better.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The true story of William Kamkwamba’s perseverance in bringing water and electricity to his African village. When his family slowly begins to starve due to a severe drought, fourteen-year-old William decides to do something about it. Although forced to stop attending school, his brain didn’t stop wondering, tinkering, and brainstorming. Using an English dictionary, he pored over science books at the library and spent hours sifting through pieces of trash at the junkyard looking for just the right pieces. Those pieces would create a windmill, whose turning blades produced wind power, providing electricity, water, and relief to his struggling village.

Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean’s Most Fearless Scientist

Eugenie Clark spent her childhood mesmerized by the ocean and especially the sharks. As she grew older she threw herself into learning everything she could about the mysterious animals and even earned a degree in zoology at a time when most women did not attend college, let alone pursue careers in science. Through her dedicated research and brilliant experiments she proved the entire world wrong: sharks were not mindless killers, but intelligent creatures who deserved to be protected.

The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read

Born a slave on an Alabama plantation, Mary Walker never learned to read. But she never stopped dreaming that one day it would happen. “When I’m free, I’ll go where I want and rest when I want. And I’ll learn to read, too.” Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, Mary spent the next century sharecropping and doing odd jobs to support her family. But she never gave up the dream of learning to read. At 114 years old, (and outliving her entire family), Mary moved into a retirement home where a reading class was held in her building. It was finally time to learn to read. It didn’t come easy; after all, she was the oldest student in the class—and probably the entire country. But her hard work and determination paid off. Mary lived through 26 presidents and was the epitome of the phrase, “you’re never too old to learn.”

Wood, Wire, Wings: Emma Lilian Todd Invents an Airplane

Emma Lilian Todd is a little-known engineer who was the first woman to design a working flying machine. As a child, her natural curiosity and inclination to tinker led her to design all kinds of useful objects. But as an adult her science brain was frowned upon. After all, in the 1800s “inventing wasn’t women’s work”. Lilian found a job typing up plans for machines at the U.S. Patent Office. When designs for airplanes came in, Lilian tested them and made models. Eventually, and after multiple attempts, failures, and iterations, Lilian built her own machine! Her patience, perseverance, and determination led not only to personal success, but to valuable knowledge in the burgeoning field of aviation.

Itzhak: A Boy Who Loved the Violin

Before he became one of the greatest violin players of all time, Itzhak was just a boy in Tel Aviv who adored music. However, when he was four years old, he fell ill with polio, which would leave him unable to stand without the assistance of a brace or move the way other children could. Instead of allowing the effects of the disease bring him down, he allowed music to sweep over him. His parents bought him a violin and although everyone told him that he couldn’t play if he couldn’t stand, he proved them wrong. Itzhak performed on the Ed Sullivan when he was only thirteen years old and knowing only four words of English—mother, father, and good morning—and after that his name was known around the world.

Loud and Proud: The Life of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm

“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” The ultimate trailblazer, Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman in Congress and the first woman and African American to run for president. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to immigrant parents who struggled fiercely to pay the rent but still encouraged her to pursue her ambitions. Her hard work landed her a full college scholarship where she began to advocate for people like her. Despite hearing “Go home to your husband,” and “You don’t belong here,” Shirley was undeterred and went on to use her voice and her power to change the country.

Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille

Louis Braille was six years old when he sustained an infection after an eye injury and lost his sight. He was desperate to learn to read but there were no books in his town for those who were blind. Upon hearing about a school for the blind in Paris he begged his parents to go but was dismayed to find that they were lacking in books as well. When Louis was 15, he was inspired by a code of raised dots used for nighttime battle communication during the war. Could he simplify this system into a series of six dots that would enable people with vision impairments to read and write quickly and easily? Louis tried and failed and eventually succeeded in creating a revolutionary raised dot alphabet, one that makes reading, books, and knowledge accessible to everyone.

What are your reading goals for the year?? Would love to hear them!

yours in reading (goals),
rawley