Reading Logs

Reading logs are a wonderful tool to monitor what students are reading, a starting place for reading conferences, and a way for students to see how much they have read over the course of a school year. At my school we have a million word campaign to encourage our students to read at least a million words a year. For my fifth graders, that equates to about six chapter books a quarter. Ten picture books or newspaper/magazine articles equals one chapter book. I encourage my students to read daily and record in their reading log each time that they read. I try to check reading logs at least once a week to see how students are progressing towards their million word goal.

On the reading log we have a chart that includes: the date, title, author, type of book, pages read, genre, rating, and parent's initials. The students mark for type of book whether it was a chapter book, picture book, or article. For genre, we use the following codes: HF-historical fiction, RF-realistic fiction, I-information, B-biography, M/H-mystery/horror, NF-nonfiction, F-fantasy, SF-science fiction, P-poetry. Our rating scale is: 4-awesome, 3-very good, 2-okay, 1-not that good. We use a smiley face rating scale for the primary grades.

One site that has examples of reading logs is: http://www.countryclipart.com/ReadingLogs/readinglogs.htm. I liked the sixth reading log best on that page, but the others may fit your students better. Another website that has some sample reading logs is: http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/reading-logs.htm. Reading logs are a great way to see what your students are reading and how frequently that they are reading.