Phoenix Union

What Do I Do When They Finish a Book?

Meaningful After-Reading Activities That Help Kids Showcase Real Reading Skills

“It’s great that kids do all this reading and that teachers do all this conferencing, but when do I get something to grade?”

I get this question, or a variation of it, all the time. It probably comes from that part of us that says kids aren’t really working unless they have work to turn in. Another part simply reflects the reality that standards-based teaching is driven by the need for assessable products.

It Helps to Have a Model

A Practical Way to Organize Reading Instruction and Assessment

One reason reading is hard to learn is because it’s hard to teach. Some people devote their entire lives to understanding what reading is, what good readers do, and how to teach these things effectively to kids. But most of us don’t have that kind of time. So I’ve found something simple that helps me a lot. It’s a model of reading instruction and assessment based on six qualities of good reading that I can teach to every kid I work with.