Read Your Height
Hi, friends!
Jamie Wagner shared her “read your height” experience in our Learning Librarians Facebook group, and I asked her to share the details here in a guest blog post. Here’s what she says.
Inspiring Students to Read
How do you inspire your students to read? For me, you lead by example. In years prior I had a dry erase board with the title of what I was currently reading.
Last year I thought it would be fun to offer a challenge to myself that my students could follow along with. I had my daughter trace me on butcher paper and I sent myself through the laminator. After I hung myself in the hallway (LOL!) I taped up sentence strips to mark my reading. Every time I finished a book, I traced the thickness of the spine and wrote in the author and title. Now, as a side note, these were books I read ON MY OWN, not things I read with the students.
The students had a great time following along with me! They would stop me in the cafeteria or the hallway and say things like, “Good job, Mrs. Wagner! You passed your knees today!” Toward the end of the year they were concerned that I wasn’t going to make it and kept cheering me on to read more books. Overall, it was very motivating to myself and my students to read more.
Summer Read Your Height
Over this summer I decided to keep tracking so the students can see what I read in their absence (almost half my height!). I was also “gifted” a case of adding machine paper that I am going to offer to my students that want to participate in the “Read Your Height” challenge. I haven’t decided where we can hang their papers, it is still an idea in process, but the beginnings of a great time are in place!
Variations of Read Your Height
Of course, students could make their own silhouettes and read their heights. Wouldn’t these be great hallway displays? You could also challenge a class to read the height of their teacher, or of your principal.
Questions?
Thank you to Jamie Wagner for taking time to share her terrific reading promotion! If you’ve got questions about this great idea, you can ask them in our Learning Librarians Facebook group. You can connect with Jamie through her Twitter account: @jwagner1006
Thanks for sharing this awesome idea. I will borrow it to use in our school library.
Thank you for sharing this idea. I like how this can be varied to fit into anyone’s library and school. I feel like the students would get really excited if there was a class competition to see who can read the height of their principle the fastest. This is a great idea to help make all students excited to read throughout the school year.
A wonderful idea! Really inspiring!
Thank you, Lenka!
Happy reading!
Cari