Reading Interest Survey

Each summer, my school assigns us professional development books to read. Does your school do this as well? I LOVE to read about other educators’ beliefs and practices so there are also others books that I have picked up throughout the year and saved to read for the summer when I have had a little more free time.

Here is a little sneak peak of some of my must reads for the summer:

I cannot wait to read Smarter Charts and Teach Like a Pirate!!

One of the first books that I have read during my summer vacay is The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader by Donalyn Miller. I had not yet entered the teaching world when this book came out several years ago. So, I am just now getting to read it. And, WOW! I missed out on not reading this book sooner! Her ideas are fabulous, and Donalyn does a great job pointing out the importance of independent reading.   I teach second grade so there are a lot of things that I will need to slightly adjust to make it work for my classroom learning experience. I cannot wait to get started!

The Reading Interest Survey is something that I took away from the book early on, and I wanted to share my tweaked early elementary ed. version with you today! There are a few versions out there, but I couldn’t find one that was exactly what I was looking for…. so I made my own. I used to have my kiddos write down what type of books they like to read on an index card at the beginning of the year. I would get vague answers that didn’t really give me a good picture of WHAT and HOW my students read. At the beginning of second grade, many of my students have not yet began to identify with specific genres and are just beginning to relate with what type of books they like to read. One of the things that I love about second grade is that the students’ reading really takes off. Many of the kiddos are starting to build a strong foundation as a reader and are beginning to develop an appreciation for reading. That is such a vital and important part of fostering successful readers so I wanted to make sure that I take full advantage of that opportunity and get to know my growing readers better.

I hope you find this survey useful. It is nothing fancy! Just click here to download.

After my kiddos take this lil ole’ learning survey this year and I have analyzed them; I will put them in their year long data folders that I keep. I think it would be interesting to have them take the survey again at the end of the year to show how they have developed as readers. Will their interests have changed? Will their responses show more knowledgeable readers? Will they be able to say “I like reading nonfiction books about dinosaurs” instead of just saying “dinosaurs” as their answer. I cannot wait to see!

 How do you learn what your new students’ reading interests are?

Happy Thursday! I am headed to a swim meet, and this is what the weather looks like…yikes!