Reading Bell Ringers & Reading Raffles

Reading is so important for the ELA classroom and I incorporate it everyday into my classroom.  This year, I am using something called a Reading Snapshot to help my students stay accountable for their reading.  This helps them set and track goals and it also helps them keep track of what happened in each of the books they read.  Since I teach middle school, it is easy for students to switch around to different books without finishing them and that is not really helping them in understanding the text and it means that they are not enjoying it either.  This makes my heart sad, and I have been trying to find ways to help them love reading as much as I do.

One year, I had students do something that we called Reading Responses and it seemed to work well for awhile. I have almost decided that students need change after about 9 weeks of something because they get comfortable with it and begin to be more relaxed, which makes them not do it as completely and thoughtfully as I'd like.  The reading response was a sheet that had 9 activities on it.  Each one was something pretty easy and it allowed (or forced) them to interact with their book.  However, many students realized that we only did them on Fridays; so, they would "fake read" Monday through Thursday and then actually read on Friday enough to do the assignment.  

So, this year, I have been having them do the Reading Snapshot and it is going ok, but I am still not sure that they are enjoying reading time.  I think I give them too much time to read in class now (trying to overcompensate, I guess), so I am cutting it back to 15 minutes of reading time now.  We just started this this week, so more updates on that later.  The Reading Snapshot is a quick way that they have to kind of list certain aspects of the book.  For example on the Fiction one, they have to list the BME of the plot.  On Non-fiction ones, they have to list some key vocabulary words that they learned or that are key to the topic.

This 9 weeks, I have incorporated a poetry one and am having them read at least one poem as one of their snapshots.  They kind of like that (probably because a poem is short. Ha!).

The snapshots are easy and make them accountable, but I am still searching for some ideas that are more engaging and fun.
This week, I am trying to give my middle school students a task to do immediately after reading that they are accountable for to remind them to stay focused.  I have made a PowerPoint to use like bell ringers and that is how we start the day.  I saw some ideas on a friend's page and I have implemented those along with some others.  Some ideas we did this week are:
Moody Monday: After reading, describe the mood and give at least 2 examples that illustrate this particular mood.
Try it Tuesday: After reading, answer the following on an index card:
One sentence summary.
Your rating so far and why.
When finished, we shared these with a partner (that we already had set up) and this helped with accountability.
Word Wall Wednesday: After reading, write one word on an index card that you do not know or is a challenging word.Then, look it up and create a definition in your own words.  When done, we shared these aloud.
I think if students think they have to share something, they will do it because they don't want to appear left out when the rest of the kids are doing it.  Positive peer pressure.

These are the snapshots that I use each 9 weeks for middle school.

Reading Raffle
Another trick I am trying this 9 weeks is to assign students to read 20 minutes at home each night.  While they were already assigned this before, I am sure many of them did not do it.  However, this time, I have found a fun method of bribery.  Ha!
I have created a little sheet that has raffle tickets on it.  For each night, Monday through Sunday, if students read at home and have their parents sign off on it, they can bring the slip to school daily and enter it in a raffle that will happen at the end of the 9 weeks.  The more you read, the more entries you get to win.  At the end of the 9 weeks, I will buy a $20 gift card and raffle one off.  They are SO excited about this.  Many have already reminded me to get the raffle forms for next week ready.  Excitement=happy me.  I know they are really only excited about the money, but if they are reading they will eventually realize how much they love it.