Setting Book Goals

As teachers we want to help create a love of reading in our students. To do this we talk with excitement about books and read to them daily. We introduce students to a variety of genres and authors and provide opportunities for them to choose what interests them. We share our reading lives and encourage them to share theirs. And as we kick off a new year, we can offer students the option to create their own reading goal for 2025. We don’t set it for them, or even require it. We share our goal and give them the choice (if they would like) to create one as well. 

We find that many students love to have a goal of how many books they will read in a year, and if they set a goal, they need a way to keep track of their progress. They can do this in a notebook, on a poster, in a planner, or on a sheet designed just for tracking their goal. The key is to model by sharing your goal and how you plan to keep track of your progress, and (of course) to make sure this is optional for them. Love of reading = choice . . . choice over what to read, when to read, and why to read. If setting a book goal is not for them, they may choose to keep track of something else (genres, authors, new words). 

Share these goal sheets for your students to choose from if they are interested in tracking their progress!