When I’ve heard people talk about reading goals, it is usually about reading a certain number of books or chapters per week, month, or year. Diane Chen gives some examples of Student Reading Goals in her article in School Library Journal. Having a goal is always a good idea. It helps motivate you and keeps you focused on a particular task. However, if the goal is too general, it can become discouraging.
My middle child struggled with learning to read. She is an active child who excels at many activities from swimming to playing the violin to flying trapeze and riding a unicycle. Basically, sitting down with a book couldn’t compete with all the other excited activities that beckoned to her, and that came so easily to her.
Since running away to the circus was not really a viable option for my daughter, we pushed forward with the learning-to-read efforts. I read aloud to her whenever possible, often trading turns with her reading a page and then my reading a page. It was difficult, because the simpler books with larger text had trouble holding her interest and the words in the more substantial books were too difficult for her to read. She would work her way haltingly through a page or a paragraph and we were both exhausted by the end. We tried re-reading passages to build a familiarity with the words on the page. It bored her. Frustration – even dispair – was building for both of us.
Help came in the form of my daughter’s 5th grade teacher, a warm, caring and dedicated woman. She assigned her class 10-20 minutes of independent reading every evening. My daughter was daunted by the assignments. However, she was encouraged to use audio recordings and to follow along with the text. At school, she was encouraged to become aware of her learning process and style in all subjects, not just reading.
One evening towards the beginning of 5th grade, my daughter climbed into my bed and asked me to read with her. She began reading aloud from the next chapter of her book – I believe it was Geronimo Stilton – and I noticed that she could read the words much more fluently than before. I remarked on her improvement and she told me, “Oh, yeah, increasing speed is one of my reading goals. It is the same goal that my reading partner, Abby, has.”
Not only did my daughter who practically would run from books have reading goals, she had a reading partner! She informed me that her other reading goal was stamina, and proceeded to explain to me exactly what that meant.
This awareness, and good bit of hard and diligent work and practice, has helped my daughter to truly become a reader. She still prefers climbing trees or playing Sharks and Minnows in the pool to sitting quietly with a book, but she is proud that she is able to read well. Now she is ready to move on to a goal like reading a book every month!
