Building Reading Stamina in Kindergarten!
Building stamina takes lots of work in any grade level. In Kindergarten, our stamina goals change throughout the year… in September our goal might be to sit and listen at the carpet for 1 minute, by October it might be to work at a table task for 5 mintues… you Kinder teachers get me. BABY STEPS. Well, once we begin to for-real read, we start working on our reading stamina. Our district has a goal of 20 minutes of independent reading by the end of K. We are getting there, people!
Next on deck are these *magic* reading wands! (Pros: Easy to make, cost pretty much nothing… Cons: The eyes fall off, so have extras ready.) Super easy to make and they remind kids to “Keep their eyes on the words”.
The latest craze though are these finger lights. (Pros: HIGH engagement and focus, easy to use, relatively cheap on Amazon…CONS: Lights don’t last forever so get extras because these will be VERY popular!)
We use them for lots of things… independent reading, reading groups, and when kids are finished with their center work they can grab a finger light to help them stretch out and read all of their words or sentences. Can we just say LOVE! I even use them for pointing out words on my chart paper. Turn off the lights, grab a finger light for yourself and have your students practice reading whatever you point to.
And last but not least… who doesn’t love a challenge?! Enter: The Reading Stamina Challenge. We started to track our stamina on this chart last week. We had the “team” talk, and about how everyone has to be doing their part during reading time to stay focused in order to fill in another bar on our chart. Now, this does make the kids get all crazy and want to get right to 20 on day one. But we talk about how stamina must be built and practiced, and that it’s not just a one-time thing. We will get there and then have a big ole celebration when we do. 🙂
5 Comments
LOVE this idea!!!! Thank you for sharing!!!
Hugs
Anna
Great ideas! Thanks for sharing!!
Love the stamina poster! Thanks for the idea!
Aylin
Learning to the Core
I really like the stamina graph – it's a great way to help kids actually see how far they've come, and how far they need to go!
Buzzing with Ms. B
Love the idea of the little finger lights, of course they would love to read with those!! Great idea!
Katie 🙂
KTP: Keep Teaching and Planning!
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