“Bright Waters” is up on PodCastle

Mrs. Brown, my wife, teaches language arts for the 7th and 8th grades as well as reading comprehension. She’s big on reading. She wants to provide every opportunity for kids to not only get good at it, but also learn to love it.

And so her walls are lined with bookshelves full of awesome books teens love. She reads the first chapters of books to her classes to let them sample various stories. She features their book reports. She has them paste the covers of the books they’ve read on pages displayed around the classroom. And the school’s awesome librarian supports with her own programs.

The 7th and 8th grade students at Rich Middle School are marinated in a big celebration of reading.

In Mrs. Brown’s class, it’s fairly straight forward to get an A on reading, which is a huge part of your grade—all you’ve got to do is read.

But how much reading do they need to do? How do you track it? And what books should they read?

Check this out.

First, she tests each student to see what his or her reading speed is.

Next, she takes the number of hours they’re supposed to be reading each week for homework (I think it’s 2 or 2.5), then does the math to get a feasible reading word count for the trimester for each student. She may adjust it a bit, depending on the student’s ability.

Third, she presents that number to the student, and the two of them set a word count goal for the trimester. Talk about an individualized goal.

If you want to get an A in reading, all you have to do is reach that word count goal.

How do you know how many words a book has?

The Accelerated Reader program provides that information.

But how does she know that they’ve read the books?

She uses the Accelerated Reader tests. And if there isn’t one, the student can write a report.

And what books do the students read?

Any dang book they like.

I love this. The kids get to select their own books and just read, read, read.

Another part of this is that she pings each student once a week to ask them what book they’re reading, what page they’re on, and what they think of the book. This weekly check-in provides the more frequent accountability students of that age need.

Yesterday, she received this report from one of her 8th grade boys who is reading Prey, the first book in The Drovers series.

Oh, yeah.

I’ll take that any day (grin).

Rock on, budding reader.