Ms. Cotton's Corner – education resources

Start the year right with a quick survey to get to know your readers. As you plan for effective reading instruction, a reader’s interest survey is a quick investment of time that pays off BIG! It gives you the data you need to ensure that your students are motivated to read, read, read! And as you know, the key to improving reading achievement is…. reading!

Read on to find out why spending 15 minutes on a Reader’s Interest Survey is the perfect way to get set up for strong reading instruction!

Reason 1 – Choosing Great Read-Alouds

Read-alouds are a key reading instruction strategy for motivating readers. The first read-aloud of the year sets the tone, so you want to get it right – and all the read-alouds that come after as well!  A Reader’s Interest Survey helps you find books that will resonate with your students and lead them to new reading discoveries of their own. It is important for intermediate students to read book series, and your class read-alouds are key for helping students discover new series to explore.

One year I was debating whether to read “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” to my students or “City of Ember”. both books are terrific, and lead students to keep reading because they want to discover the rest of the books in the series. I took a quick look at the data from my Reader’s Interest Surveys, and noticed that two students had listed “The Giver” as a favorite. That made my decision easy! I chose “City of Ember” and watched with delight as several students in my class devoured the rest of the series!

Reason 2 – Matching Individual Readers with Motivating Books

One of the greatest joys of teaching upper elementary is matching students with that perfect book that motivates them to love reading. We know that motivated readers read, and that key to motivation is student choice and voice. A survey will help you listen to your students and guide you to start with titles they already love, and then stretch them to new titles, new genre, and new authors.

Several years ago, I was teaching 4th grade. At our back-to-school night, Riley’s mother expressed her concerns that her son didn’t like to read and asked for my advice. So, I read Riley’s Reader’s Interest Survey carefully. And she was right. He did not like to read…. The only book he had ever enjoyed was “Nate the Great”, which he had read 2 years previously. I decided that “The Bad Beginning” might be a good place to start, and it is one of my favorite read-alouds for the beginning of the year. And it worked! Riley had never encountered another book like that, and he devoured the rest of the series in sort order. By December, I was recommending the Nathan Hale books, and then a few months later “The Mysterious Benedict Society.” By the end of fourth grade, Riley was a reader.

Reason 3 – Buying Books That Will Fly Off the Shelves!

Choice is an essential component of motivating readers, especially struggling readers.  The Reading Interest Survey will help you make wise choices on how to spend your hard-earned money. Looking carefully at your students’ responses helps you find the books that are engaging and effective for your readers. You don’t want to clean up at the end of the year and find books that have never had the cover cracked!

I will never forget Grace. Two years behind grade level, she was firmly convinced that she was not a reader. At the beginning of the year, she did not like reading. One of the questions on my Reading Survey is, “What do you like to do on the weekends?” She said she enjoyed babysitting her cousins. So, I dusted off “The Babysitters Club” series and gave her one to try. She loved it, and then made her way through many of the books in the series that year. At the end of the year, she proudly told me that she had read 18 books during the year – which was a huge improvement of the 5 she read in fourth grade. She had also made 2 years’ growth on the Reading STAR test! The Reader’s Interest Survey helped me match her with the perfect series.

Reason 4 – Enhancing Reading Instruction with Small Groups

As you know, small group strategies like Literature Circles and Book Groups help your students love reading and learn the skills they need to grow as readers. Reading is a social activity, especially in the intermediate grades.  The survey results will help you match students with other students, building a community in your classroom and growing the reading conversation! Not only will you improve reading comprehension and motivation, you will also help your students make connections with each other. Loneliness and anxiety are a growing problem for adolescents, so any way we can bring them together provides a huge emotional benefit. How many times have you made a new friend, or deepened an existing friendship, by discussing a good book? Use your survey results to match students with similar interests and connect them with the perfect book!

Reason 5 – Personalizing Reading Instruction by Getting to Know Your Students

Strong relationships are key to building a vibrant classroom community and managing student behavior.  A Reading Interest Survey is a great tool for helping you quickly get to know your students. A few minutes spent reading the answers will help you have great conversations with your students – the building blocks of the relationships that will set you up for success.

What do Teachers Say?

“I use this at the beginning of the year to get to know my new students and what interests them. It allows me to be on the lookout for books that match up with student interests, throughout the year.”

-Tamara B.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

“Well laid out, easy to use and easy for the students to understand.”

-Jennifer G.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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