Involving Kids in Goal Setting

Today on my break in class I was reading another professional book about teaching reading (no surprise there!). The authors were talking about how, after initial reading assessments with kids, they sit down with them to goal set. I like that. I do that, but they took kid's involvement to a higher level.

Knowing already what they need to work on (fluency, comprehension, or accuracy -- or some of each), the teacher "guided" the goal setting, but formed it as a situation where the child buy in. For instance, she would say, "Hey, I know you have wanted to work on ways to get a better understanding of what you read...how about we work on that?" Then she would pose options for the kids -- they could either stop and jot down after each paragraph, or meet with a partner after each chapter, or draw a sketch after a few pages, etc. After the child decided, she would write it in her notebook to remind herself of what the goal was and they would mutually decide the next time she would get together with that child to "check in" on how that strategy was going.

But here's the good part. The CHILD wrote the goal down on a post it and put it in her book, along with the date they would be meeting again.

That way the student would open the book and be reminded immediately of the strategy they were to do. I liked that a lot, and thought of a way to extend it. I thought the child could have a notebook -- each time they read they would date the entry and write the title of the book, and write a sentence or two about how they tried the strategy and how it helped them. If not a notebook, they could just date the sticky note and add a sentence right on that on how they tried it and how it worked.

Just an idea.