From the Classroom: Building Reflective Readers

Yes, it may be summer for most, if not all, of you, but here at From the Mixed-Up Files, we know teachers are always thinking ahead to next year. In this edition of From the Classroom, let’s look at some ways to build reflective readers during the course of a school year.

Student Survey

In 5th grade, we start the first day of school with homework. Does it get good-natured groans? Yes. Does it serve several important purposes? Also yes. My first assignment of the year is a Student Survey. It’s an important tool for establishing relationships right away. It lets students know upfront that I care about who they are as people, about their families and their interests, and about their preferred name and pronouns. 

In addition, I have sections for students to reflect on “You as a Reader” and “You as a Writer.” Each section is a series of open-ended questions that ask students about their reading interests, habits, and recent books they’ve read. I get some great insights from questions like, “Reading in school would be even better if …” and “How do you decide what you will read next?” This survey sets the expectations that we are a community who consider ourselves readers, who think about ourselves as readers, and who make choices based on what we know about ourselves as readers.

Quarterly Reading Reflections

After the first few weeks of school, students choose their own personal reading goal for the rest of the quarter. We revisit these each quarter, evaluate our old goals, and pick new ones. We do a lot of work ahead of time talking about the importance of goals and goal setting. There are always some students who get right to the key idea: that goals give us something to aim for as well as something to measure up against. I also stress that these goals are individual and private. This is not a competition between students but a challenge you set for yourself.

I model a lot of different varieties of goals. In addition to choosing a number of books to read, students need to pick one additional add-on. Some may choose to try another genre. Some may want to read longer books. Some know they jump around and rarely finish books. Some want recommendations or strategies for finding books. 

My favorite part about having students develop their own goals is how well they know themselves as readers. That’s how you get goals like, “to pay attention to parts I don’t want to read” or “to read more during free time and to be more efficient so I have more free time” or “to get sleep by not reading too late at night.” (I think we all can relate to that last one.)

Book Discussion Reflections

Many of the books we read in fifth grade are in small-group book club discussions. We have four genre-based book clubs during the school year. We read contemporary realistic fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, and mystery / adventure books for the genres. I booktalk five to seven titles and students rank their choices. Then I make groups of four to six students and over the course of three weeks they read and discuss the book within their groups.  

Early in the year, there are set questions and roles for each student on their weekly note-sheet, but later in the year groups set up their own systems for questions and building discussions. While students often complain about having to stop on cliffhangers (because they cannot read ahead until after discussion), the payoff during the final book club discussion is worth it. Especially for the mystery books (see above), it’s so gratifying to watch each group slowly discover what is really happening in each story. 

As a closing activity with book clubs, I have a student self-assessment, where they rate themselves based on their participation in discussions. There is also a second section where they rate the book and offer feedback about future book club ideas. I appreciate how honest my students are when filling out this survey. They often own up to their unhelpful behaviors, and there is a follow-up question about how they can do better next time. And often times, they do!

End of Year Best Book Lists

My all-time favorite tool for building reflective readers is wrapping up the year together by creating our own Best Books lists. Kids get incredibly passionate about their favorite middle grade reads, and it’s fun to send them into summer with a huge list of peer-recommended books to consider. 

I provide students with a Canva template that they can either drag-and-drop new book covers into or that they can more fully customize. The guidelines are simple: come up with your Top 5 best books, either from this year or design your own category. Theo’s list shows off the basic template that I used this year, whereas Nathalie and Elsa (opening image) did more of their own design work.

This is a great way to wrap up the year. Students are reflecting on their reading lives from the past year, but they are also sharing those lives with each other. We make a class slideshow with everyone’s graphics and a brief write-up of each book. I share these with families in my end-of-year email so that they can access the book recommendations all summer long. If you want to read more fifth grade book lists, there is a whole collection of student Best Book lists that you can browse here. 

Why Build Reflective Readers?

Reflective readers take ownership over their reading lives and reading choices. They invest in books of their choosing, and they learn to push themselves to grow as readers too. If we want to raise lifelong readers, let’s start by encouraging all our middle grade readers!

What are your favorite tools and tricks for growing and encouraging middle grade readers?

Katie McEnaney

As an author, archaeologist, and 5th grade teacher, Katie McEnaney is always on a whirlwind hunt for the perfect artifact to illustrate a point and teach about the past. She even developed a virtual escape room for her students based on The Temple of Dendur exhibit at the MET – no suitcase required! Her stories have been featured in Little Thoughts Press and the middle grade anthology Clio’s Curious Dash Through Time. When she’s not traveling the world and geeking out over archaeological sites, you can find her at home in Wisconsin with her husband, son, and two very-demanding cats.