A Teacher Decides to Dump Her Weekly Reading Logs

In this article in The Reading Teacher, Illinois teacher Sarah Davis says that for several years, she had students keep a reading log to hold them accountable for reading after school. Over time, she decided to eliminate the required parent signature and began to ask students to write briefly about what they were reading. She intended the logs to take very little of students’ time and de-emphasized the role they played in grades. 

But there was a problem. “My students were completing the reading log assignment,” she says, “but they were considering their reading an assignment as well. Even if they were enjoying their books, they did not consider themselves to be reading for pleasure.” One week, Davis didn’t assign a reading log and a student protested that he’d read an entire book and hadn’t received credit. He clearly felt he’d done a lot of work for nothing, even though he’d clearly enjoyed the book.

This was a turning point for Davis. “I immediately began looking for ways to keep my students reading outside of school without stifling their enjoyment of it,” she said. Here’s what she did:

• She eliminated the reading logs altogether.
• She held her students accountable for their reading by asking students to tell their current book and page number during independent reading.
• She had students participate in Book Buzz once a week – they wrote a focused reflection on what they were reading and shared the reflection with classmates.

“I am gaining the same information as I did from the reading logs,” says Davis, “but the students provide the information in class. They are excited to get rid of the reading logs. They recognize that I am asking them to do the same amount of work, but it is no longer on their own time. My hope is that not only will my students continue to read, but they will see it as nothing more than a pleasurable experience.” 

“Rethinking Reading Logs” by Sarah Davis in The Reading Teacher, September 2014 (Vol. 68, #1, p. 45), http://bit.ly/1BxroFn

From the Marshall Memo #554