Reading Journals 'R Us

"Do you have any homework this evening, Suzy?" inquired Mrs. Studento.
"Naw," responded Suzy as she continued filling her water bottle for soccer practice.

Sound familiar? Much like you, I suspect, when I ask my middle-schooler "What happened in school today?" or "Is there any homework?" your queries are often met with short "naws" or "nothings." Rest assured, (my son would say unfortunately so) things are not always as reported.

the New York State Department of Education (NYSED) recommends that every student read twenty-five books a year. In order to facilitate the reaching of this goal, as well as, to (hopefully!) continue to develop a love of reading in our students, Greece Athena Middle School provides 20 minutes daily during which time students are required to read silently to themselves. This time is commonly referred to as "SSR," or Sustained Silent Reading. For our students in House 1, Grade 8, this is the 20 minutes immediately following lunch every day.

A standing assignment that our students are currently responsible for is the maintenance of a Reading Journal. In their Reading Journal, students are tracking what and how much they are reading independently in a twenty minute block of time. After completing the self selected reading (book, magazine, newspaper, manuals, etc.), students then select one from a list of twenty-five prompts, which requires them to respond or engage what they have read, and respond in their journal. The resulting product is what we have dubbed a "Reading Journal Entry."

Another goal of the activity is to provide students the opportunity to explore and try different and previously unfamiliar genres and authors. Our school library is chock full of different books and periodicals, which students are invited to check out. Additionally, for those of you looking for some new books to suggest to your student, there are a few links with some books that may be of interest, listed to the left of this post.

So even if your "Suzy" or "Sam" says there is no homework for Language Arts (or Social Studies, Physical Education, Math, and so on) you can always suggest that they take out a book, magazine or newspaper and spend twenty-minutes sharpening their reading skills.

Read Up and Write On!