I recently came across a post on Grant Boulanger’s blog written by Mónica Romero where she shows how she has students share what books they are reading during FVR (Free Voluntary Reading). Go ahead and read that post… go on, I’ll wait. What I love about blogging is the sharing that bloggers do. There are so many good ideas out there, and sometimes you see something and it can spark an idea. That’s what happened with this. I wanted to do something similar with my level 1 students. We are currently reading about 8 minutes every Monday. Every Monday for “Lectura Libre”, I ask my students “¿Qué día es hoy?” (Lunes) “¿Y qué hacemos los lunes” (Leemos) “¿Qué?” (Leemos) “¡¿QUÉ?!” (LEEMOS)

After our first trimester, (and seeing Monica’s post), I decided to create a competition between my classes. After a student has finished reading a novel, they will take a a sheet that I’ve printed and give their book a rating and write their name before hanging it up on their period’s chart. The class with the most books at the end of the year will win something big (haven’t decided what yet).

To access this Me Gustó to print, click here. Go to File and “Make a Copy” to be able to edit it.

Here is what it looks like hanging up in my classroom:

To implement this yourself, you’ll need a document of the photos of the book covers, then insert a picture of 5 blank stars underneath so students can fill these in. It’s really interesting to see how books get rated by different students. Print these off and have them available for students to fill out once they have finished a book (at the end of FVR time, or later, NOT during FVR).  OK, we’ll help. Here’s a start: FVR covers for tracking chart powerpoint. Depending on your classroom size and space available you may want to make these images even bigger.

Make sure you are subscribed to our blog (top right side column) to get all our new posts. Stay tuned for further FVR posts including our FVR: Home Edition, to be implemented soon.

And of course, if you have any other ideas or adaptations, be sure to share them, which is exactly what Mike Peto did describing Alina Filipescu’s system.