Getting to Know Our Community of Readers

We began our year by connecting with our summer reading and our Public Library.  Our second class of the year took the reading categories that our Public Library created and required students to interact with one another and have discussions about them.

We began class by playing Human Bingo.  I created a bingo board with the reading categories and supplemented with several fun categories like "I read in my pajamas" and "I read something that wasn't a book."  Students had to find someone in the class that read or had the related experience and write their name on their board.  The goal was to fill as many boxes as possible and to accrue as many "bingos" as possible.

When time was up I took inventory on how many "bingos" were achieved and how many boxes were filled.  I also wanted to know which boxes were hard to fill.  The most common responses were:

• History
• Science Fiction
• Science/Math
• Reading something that wasn't a book
• I went to the library
• I read with someone else (5th grade response)

My takeaways

In only one class did someone ask the inevitable question, "What do we get if we get Bingo?"  They wanted to know what prize was at stake.  I informed them that "pride" in our reading and ourselves was to be distributed, not a "prize."  Do they need a prize to encourage them to participate?  No.  They worked for the pride and we celebrated our accomplishments.