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Getting your students to talk more in depth about their reading and to use the reading skills they are learning about can be hard. I’ve been there before, where I felt like I had taught the reading skill really well, but it wasn’t transferring over to my students’ discussions, writings, or responses. It seemed like the students would have a skill down, but only in isolation and they couldn’t shift it over to all areas of reading.
However, once I started using these student friendly reading rubrics it was a huge game changer in my classroom! The student rubrics really upped the discussions my students were having, and in turn helped their writing skills and responses. The reading rubrics did take TIME to implement and teach, but the results were far beyond my expectations and well worth the time investment at the beginning.
You can have these easy to use student and teacher reading rubrics for FREE! Sign up at the end of this post and I’ll send the reading rubrics straight to your email. But first, keep reading how I used the student rubrics to help change my classroom discussions and my students’ writing.
Here are the 4 steps on how I used the student friendly rubrics in my classroom.
I first started off by introducing the student friendly rubric for the reading skill we were working on. I would go over each section and then we would brainstorm ideas about what it would mean to show that section well or not so well. For example, on the student friendly retelling rubric I would have students help me come up with a good way to tell the beginning, middle, and end of a story. Then we would come up with an answer that wasn’t so great and how to fix it. Introducing the rubric sometimes took one mini-lesson/day and sometimes took 2 days depending on time or how many sections the reading rubric had. There would be times I would just introduce the student friendly rubric and show the students the different sections. Then the next day we would brainstorm what good answers would look like for each of those sections. The introduction can be flexible and fit what works best for your class!
After I had introduced the reading skill rubric, I was ready to model. This is probably the most important part of the whole process. Modeling what you expect out of your students is the key to actually getting them to do what you want. In my classroom, I always started off the modeling by reading a book and then pulling up the student friendly rubric on my board. Then I would practice the reading skill we were working on by showing that skill. When I was done modeling the skill I would grade myself using the rubric on the board. I would think out loud as I was grading myself, so the students could hear my thought process. For example, on the summarizing rubric I would discuss how I used story events but didn’t use great detail, so I would mark myself down in that area. Then the next day we would read another book and I would model the reading skill/rubric again. If it was a tricky skill I would sometimes do another day of myself modeling, but normally I would only model once or twice for my students before I moved on to them helping me.
The next step in modeling was student involvement. I would use a new story (or sometimes the same story from the previous days) and I would model whatever reading skill we were working on. Then I would have the students grade me on how I did. We would discuss if my response was a good one or needed some work. We would do this a few times with different books, so the students could get more familiar with the rubric and grading someone. Sometimes I would model the reading skill and put students in groups and have each group grade me on my response. Then we would discuss the different grades from the groups. I would make sure to always be the one students were grading, so I could also show how to react when they graded me poorly on some areas. I made a point to discuss how we all need to work and improve in different areas and how we can frame our comments and construction in a healthy and positive way.
After the students were involved in using the rubrics with me, I would slowly turn it over to them to practice on their own. Throughout the week, whenever we read a book or text I would partner the students up and have them each practice the reading skill and then use the student friendly rubric to grade their partners. I would walk around and listen to the conversations, help students, and make sure everything was going smoothly. Students would take turns grading each other and their discussions started going deeper because they had an outline to help them focus on what to listen and give feedback on. Occasionally, I would also have my students grade themselves after they answered a question as more practice. For example, if they were working on a worksheet or answering questions over a text, I would quickly pull out the student friendly rubric for that skill and have them grade their answer before turning their work in. This helped my students check their writing and make sure they had all parts of the reading skill that they needed in their answer.
After a few weeks the students got into a groove of using the rubrics and it became routine. Since the reading rubrics are all set up and formatted the same, the students became very used to using them and would use them with new reading skills easily. They knew the expectations and became experts at grading themselves and others. I would keep a drawer full of the reading rubrics printed out and on hand for whenever I needed them. Then each time we read a book I would pull them out and have them partner up and grade each other or grade me. I would switch it up each time to make it more engaging for my students. These student friendly reading rubrics were a quick easy activity to pull out whenever I needed them. I would use them as a closing to my reading lesson, a quick discussion after reading a book, or an activity for an observation. They can be used in so many ways and really help focus students on what to discuss and what they need to remember to include in each reading skill.
Using these student friendly rubrics really helped my students know how to have good discussions and give good feedback because they had areas to know what to listen for. In turn, this helped my students’ writing because if the students are not speaking and saying good responses, then they are not going to write good responses. After using the reading rubrics my students got used to speaking and giving good answers, so naturally their writing started to match and get more descriptive and specific.
Then when it was time for me to actually take a grade on a specific reading skill, I would use the teacher reading rubrics and grade their responses. However, since the students were so used to using the student friendly rubrics that had the same sections and areas, they knew exactly what I was looking for and how to give a good answer.
So give these reading rubrics a try in your own classroom for FREE! In the FREEBIE below I have included the student friendly reading rubrics and ALSO the teacher reading rubrics that I used to grade my students with as well. Just sign up below and the reading rubrics will be sent right to your inbox. Enjoy!