Creating Readers WITHOUT a Traditional Reading Log

Elementary teachers looking to find a non-traditional reading log will find this post quite helpful (and possibly inspirational?!).

“Teachers who help and trust students to act as readers assess their growth in ways that match what readers do: we talk with them, listen to them, and show them what they need to know or do next.”

— Nancie Atwell, The Reading Zone

A Tale of Before and After

Slap the handcuffs on; I’m guilty as charged.

I’ve come to terms with my misguided peccadillos and am now ready to talk about it:

Reading logs were a huge part of my classroom culture for a very long time.

Allow me to explain.

Before the enlightening, my well-meaning reading-teacher self would pass out reading logs every Friday. Students were expected to read each day, record the title, author, genre, perhaps a one-sentence summary, and turn it in the following Friday for a grade. Oh, and a parent had to initial as well “proving” that the child had read.

I even assigned grades! Students would get points deducted if their logs were missing a day of reading, a parent initial, or if any part of the log was incomplete.

Now, to be fair to myself, I didn’t assign a ton of other homework so the reading log was a big part of holding students accountable and allowing them to show responsibility for something. It also provided me a great deal of information about my readers each morning when I looked over their logs. “Ooh Sawyer, I see that you finished Wings of Fire #6! What did you think of the ending?!” “Oh wow, Mallory! You are on a graphic novel roll! Have you read Roller Girl yet? I think you’ll go nuts over it!”

See? The impetus behind the logs was well intentioned, but I was way off base in a number of other ways.

My Come-to-Jesus Moment occurred not too long ago, when my very own child was given a reading log by his wonderful and well-meaning teacher. This kid is a reader. He reads in the car. He reads before and after school. He voraciously reads on the toilet. You get the point.

He (ahem, we) struggled with completing that dang reading log. We’d hang it on the fridge, put it front and center in his binder, tape it to the bathroom mirror, but still a month would go by and that reading log would remain visibly, mockingly, blank—until the mad scramble to fill it out the day before it was due.

SCENE

KID: Hey Mom, did I read 20 or 25 minutes on November 16th? And do you think I read the weekend of November 4th?

MOM: Um. I have no clue.

KID: Ok, I’ll just make something up.

MOM: No! You can’t do that! Just leave it blank.

KID: I can’t leave it blank! I’ll get a bad grade!

END SCENE

It wasn’t until he started timing himself to make sure he read at least 30 minutes a night that I saw a change. What was once a pleasurable activity for him now became a chore. Because he had to get his required number of minutes in order to complete the log, reading became all about the minutes and the grade he would subsequently receive. My little reading machine turned into a little reading stopwatch.

Pre-Reading Log he would pick up a book for fun whenever he had free time.

Post-Reading Log he would moan and groan when I told him he needed to read.

There were even signs in my classroom to ditch the reading log that I blatantly ignored. My most voracious readers were the ones frantically filling in their logs Friday morning, forging parent initials, and getting points docked for incomplete logs. “But I read!” they insisted. “Tsk. Tsk.” I would wag my finger. Shoulda filled out the log.

My insatiable readers were being made to feel punished. My book-loving son was losing his reading motivation little by little. What was happening??

“The reading logs,” the Universe whispered.

{Here’s where my head spun around Exorcist-style to find a pile of graded reading logs stacked on the table. I like to think a ray of light shone upon them but it could’ve been my imagination.}

It was then and there that I decided to do something different. Upon researching “non-traditional reading logs” I came across Ekuwah Moses’ brilliant idea. Why not highlight all of the choices they have in their reading lives instead of limiting them to a certain amount of time? Why not celebrate being a real reader instead of imposing stipulations that stifle their reading motivation?

Real readers discuss books, recommend books to others, and read because they want to. They don’t read for exactly 20 minutes every night. They don’t record their minutes or the number of pages they read. They don’t provide short summaries of the text. And they definitely don’t have to prove what they said they’ve read.

Once I knew what I didn’t want, devising a new and improved log was easy.

Enter the new Learning Log.

One aspect of my former reading log that I kept was the discussion piece. I am insistent that students write down the titles of the books they read so that I am able to engage in a conversation about them. Also, if I know what titles they are choosing on their own I am better equipped to put books in their hands that I know they’ll enjoy.

Besides the title of the book, students must indicate by circling whether they performed wide, wild, or shared reading (thank you again, Ekuwah Moses!), and explain what it was they did.

For example, if my son were completing the log, he’d circle “wild” and then write “read in the bathtub” on the line.

*And as an aside, bathtub reading was THE most common form of wild reading as noted by last year’s class. Très interesting, no?

One more thing. I love goals. I love setting goals for myself. I love setting goals for my students. I love discussing goals. It seemed only natural to include a short quip about goal setting in the Weekly Reading page. So, at the start of the week I have them jot down a reading and math goal and then I periodically check in on how close they are to achieving said goals. You can also have students set goals on Friday for the coming week. Whatever works.

It’s simple and effective and as you can see I’m a changed woman.

That’s it. The entire composition of their weekly reading homework rolled into one handy sheet (front and back).

You’ll notice there is no place to record minutes, pages, genre, a summary, or parent initials. It’s very straightforward and requires almost zero extra work on the student/parent/teacher part.

But. I can’t say relinquishing control of their reading was easy. Before launching this new log, questions of doubt swirled around my head at all times.

Would my students read enough if I didn’t require my typical twenty minutes per night?

Would they be honest about their reading if I didn’t require a parent initial?

And you know what? Faith won out.

I can safely assure you that the answers were a resounding yes.

Yes! They read and they read ravenously. Not watching a clock meant more focus on the book and more ability to get into the reading zone. Not recording a summary or worrying about how many pages were read meant more time actually reading. And more enjoyment of reading. And more talking about reading.

Just like real readers.

Have you tried a non-traditional log with great results? I’d love to know your thoughts!

yours in reading,
rawley