Middle School Café - Empowering Secondary ELA Teachers
Are you an ELA teacher striving to help your middle and high school students become confident, capable readers and writers? Middle School Cafe is your go-to podcast for practical strategies, proven methods, and inspiration to close the reading gap and unlock every student's potential.
In each episode, I will share real-world insights and actionable tips drawn from years of classroom experience to help you meet students where they are and guide them toward growth. From implementing the workshop model to fostering student ownership of learning, you'll discover ideas and strategies that make a real impact.
Join the community of educators working to create classrooms where every student thrives. Visit www.middleschoolcafe.com to learn more and start building the readers and writers we know your students can be.
Middle School Café - Empowering Secondary ELA Teachers
Accountability Beyond Recording Pages With Reading Reflections
Do you use reading logs to hold students accountable for their reading outside of class? Is it producing the outcome you were hoping for when you assigned the reading? Yes, it's important to hold students accountable for the work we assign, but without a purpose beyond recording page numbers or number of minutes a student reads, is it really helping students? In today's episode share how I moved from the traditional reading log to reading reflections.
Reading logs - the recording of page numbers is a quantitative measure of how much reading has been done by the student; it tracks the number of pages that have been read over a specific amount of time. This approach does not require any reflection or response from the student. It also opens the door for some students and parents to lie for a grade neglecting the intent of the reading assignment.
Reading Reflections, on the other hand, is an opportunity for students to demonstrate their thinking about what they are reading. A reading reflection invites students to include their own thinking and experiences with what they are reading. Reflections can be as simple as a free write or they can be structured by asking students questions. Questions can be asked at a higher level in order to get the students to think more deeply about the material. You can ask them to record the pages they have read but that is not the focus of the reflection.
Head over to the blog to see what I include in my student reflection sheets!
Resources mentioned in the episode:
Weekly Reading Reflections Set 1
Weekly Reading Reflections Set 2
Weekly Reading Reflections BUNDLE
FREE Two Week Sample of Reading Reflections
Be sure to join the Secondary ELA Facebook group where we will be continuing the conversation about holding students accountable for their reading.
Tune in on your favorite podcast apps Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! If you’re loving this podcast, please rate, review and
Website: https://middleschoolcafe.com/
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/secondaryela
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/middleschoolcafe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/middleschoolcafe/
TPT Shop: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Middle-School-Cafe