Day 4: Defining Our Promise

So I got too excited (imagine that?) and told my class about our Reading Promise Project already! Actually, I told them on the second day of school. I couldn't help it!

Last Thursday, our class was discussing our hopes and dreams, so I shared my biggest dream for my students this school year with the class: To help inspire my students to develop a love of reading by challenging our class to try to read together every day of our school year (184 days total) without missing a day. Obviously, I then had to explain all about Alice Ozma's reading streak with her father, my inspiration behind this idea. The class was awestruck at how many days Alice and her father were able to read together. Some had especially high aspirations for our class ("We can read every day for a century!!"), others weren't sure we could make it a month. I let the idea simmer with them for a bit and didn't bring it up again for a couple of days...which ended up being less than a whole week.

Today we talked about our reading promise together again. We started to discuss some more specifics of our expectations. Our answers haven't been completely decided upon yet, but here are some of the questions we started to consider. What will happen if I'm absent one day? What should we do if a student is absent? How long should we read each day to have it count? What obstacles do you anticipate happening this year that we'll need to plan for and overcome? 

Here is what we decided...

• A lot of varying amounts of time were thrown around when we brought this up. (My favorite answer to this one was an enthusiastic "all day!!!") But taking all of the students' ideas for times into consideration, along with the constraints of our schedule, we came up with the range of 15-20 minutes of reading aloud together.

• The students decided that I should be the one to read to them everyday, but we also talked about the potential problem of what will happen if I am absent one day. I loved the students' creative answers to this question! Some possible solutions included: having me phone in to read aloud to the class, allowing it to still count if the substitute takes over the reading for the day, doubling up on reading together once I'm back, or having the students take over the reading aloud for that day.

• We did decide that we won't count it against us if a student is absent. It's already happened to us this school year and it's hard to control, though I loved the students suggestion of having absent students continue our streak by reading from wherever they are outside of school that day!

• One of the first obstacles students thought of was field trips. We know for sure we will have two full day field trips this year. We decided that I should bring our book along with us and read to the class on the bus or during lunch. (Even though we usually get back from field trips with plenty of time to spare, I like these options much better. How fun would be to huddle together in the Pennsylvania State Capitol's lunch room, sharing a reading moment?)

• Another obstacle...snow days?! Do we count those against us? Do we have to find a creative way to still read together when school is cancelled? We ended up deciding that snow days don't count against us, since we make them up later in the school year. But, I did love one students' idea of emailing all the parents a reading of the chapters we'd miss that day so that the kids could still keep up with the book from home.

While our rules are still a work in progress, I loved the students' creative ideas! They are what the reading streak will be all about. They build excitement and enthusiasm for the process and experience.

Have any other classrooms or families out there decided on the rules for your reading promise? If so, do share!

Happy Reading!
Mrs. Hartman