Engage students while learning more about them as readers with a reading inventory for elementary students. Understanding students as readers will provide support in helping them to develop a real love for reading. Understanding our likes/dislikes and past experiences around reading makes a huge difference in better book selection and takes away the chore of reading for many. Reading engagement is crucial to student success and possibly the biggest gift we can give to students.
What is Reading Engagement?
Reading engagement comes in many forms. Students engrossed in a book so much that they don’t hear you calling to clean up. A student daydreaming thinking about their character. Or, maybe, a student who can’t stop talking during their book club meeting because they have so much to say. Of course, these examples don’t depict the only type of engaged reader, but all describe pretty much one thing: a reader who can’t put their book down. We want students making those movies in their mind as they are reading a book. I truly believe that any student can learn to love reading, but too many are only somewhat engaged and read because they are required to, while some kids just straight up dread independent reading time. We know that students need to have a good fit book, but what other reading engagement activities can we try to get our students on the right track with developing a love for reading?
Reading Identity
Reading identity impacts reading engagement. Students should know who they are as readers – their habits, likes, and dislikes – before they can improve their reading experiences. I’ve seen this time and time again when I work students and ask them what kind of books they like to read. I get a blank stare or, if I’m lucky, a 5th grader responds with “fiction”. As I try to dig deeper about what type of fiction, many students do not know and some even confused about what I mean when I say “genre”.
Students need more opportunities to reflect on past, present, and future reading experiences in order to think about who they are as readers. Before we pressure students to pick up a book and start reading, it’s our responsibility to help them recognize their likes and dislikes and to really understand their reading identity as they look for a book and set goals for themselves. How can you set a goal to read longer if you don’t know what books interest you?
Reading Inventory for Elementary Students
What is a reading inventory? Reading inventories use questions or prompts to learn more about a reader. They are especially helpful in the beginning of the year but can be used at any point when students need support in learning more about themselves as readers. These 4 activities are a great start for an inventory and learning more about reading identities.
1. Brainstorm
Tell students to write or draw anything that comes to mind when they think about reading. They can insert pictures, too, if doing this digitally.
This may sound simple but it can give you really good information about your students’ feelings and experiences with reading. I always remind students to be honest so if they don’t like reading, they should write that!
2. Mind map
Ask students to mind map anything that comes into their heads when they think about reading. You can add prompts like favorite authors, preferred genres, etc., as a scaffold or just let students be creative and start from scratch.
Students can try this on blank paper to get their creative juices flowing! Mind maps are a great way to promote critical and creative thinking.
3. I’m the kind of reader who…
Have students finish this prompt. From my experiences, so many students struggle with this. Even as an adult, it can take me a minute to really think about how I would respond to this. When promoting students, I will tell them that I’m the kind of reader who “Likes to read multiple books at once.” My students LOVE hearing about me as a reader instead of me always telling them what to do with their reading.
Share as much as you can about yourself as a reader to show them good reading habits. Students should be able to answer this prompt in many ways if they really know who they are as readers. This one may take a little modeling but will be worth it as students can say I’m the kind of reader who _____ with confidence. It’s a good one to come back to again and again.
4. Describe a Positive Reading Memory
This can be a real eye opener. Some students have many positive memories that pop right up while other students have minimal ideas and need support.
I always find it interesting to see where these memories stem from and if students struggle, try to use our classroom as a place for more positive reading memories.
How to Measure Engagement
All of these ideas give data points and help you to understand your students as readers on a deeper level. It is important that students are not pressured to finish an assignment like this if they are struggling. The struggle is giving you the information that you need. Consider allowing the student to come back to this assignment at a later time. Pay attention to your students as they complete reading engagement activities and take notes on their demeanor and responses. Use all of this data to create strategy groups so that you can use to address engagement in many different ways and help students navigate some of their challenges. Read to find out more about taking data to use as formative assessment.
Try it out with a small group of students to look for commonalities and differences. Use that data to work one on one or in partnerships. This Reading Strategy book has many great lesson ideas for working with students on reading engagement.
Free Reading Inventory for Elementary Students
This ideas above are part of this ready to use reading interest survey. It can be used on Google Classroom or shown as examples for students to complete in reading notebooks.
Download this reading interest inventory for elementary students pdf with these 4 activities and 5 more for FREE by signing up below!
Try out one of these activities and let me know how it goes. I hope it helps you to understand more about your readers!
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