TechChef » 3 FREE Reading Trackers for Students

As you well know, I love crafting and creating content and tools for others… whether it be iLesson recipes or templates.

Over the past few weeks, our campus instructional team has been visiting with many of the ELA PLC’s. One of the topics we have been discussing is pleasure or independent reading. More specifically, how often it happens per week, how students complete reader responses, what pathways are being sued for book talks/recommendations, and how teachers are doing student conferences.

Within this discussion, how students are actually tracking what they read also came up. As you also know, I love habit trackers. What you may not know is for the first time in I can remember, I read 43 books last year… and I have to credit that accomplishment to keeping a running tally of the books I had read as well as a reading next list. Both of these tools helped me with momentum and progress… so I decided to create 3 different versions for you and your students to explore.

3 Versions of Reading Trackers

Some students and classes use analog trackers and others digital ones. Some track the different genres they read. Others track the number of pages. And some use a spreadsheet as a bookmark to note where they left on their book. As I can’t possibly address all of the use cases and variables with a tool like this, I created 3 different versions and made sure 2 were editable so you could with them as you see fit.

Numbers: The Numbers version is editable and designed for MacBook, iPad, and iPhone. It includes a drop down for genre (which can be modified) as well as a touch star rating system. As this tool is editable*, it is easy for students to add or delete columns easily based on how many books they read.
Google Sheets: The Google Sheets version is editable* and almost identical to the Numbers version with the exception that the touch star rating is a drop down. Again, the tool is editable, so feel free to make modifications and/or have your students do so.
PDF: The PDF is intended to be printed and shaded in. As this one is a PDF, I don’t have the editable version. I was assured for secondary, that 3 books a 9 weeks would be plenty. If you find that you like this version but would like more books added to it or like it for a 6 weeks, just let me know (techchef4u@gmail.com) and I can create some alternate versions. I should also mention that there is a key at the bottom so students would choose a color to represent each genre and then shade books accordingly after they have read them.

All 3 versions are available in the Creatively Productive Doc Locker (linked below) for FREE!

* Editing. I wanted to make a quick note on editing the Numbers and Google Sheets versions. In Numbers, click on the cell and then Data Format. In Google Sheets, click on the cell and the Data Validation.

What Else?

I never like to leave you without a +1 or a Yes… And… so here goes…

Reading Journals: I have curated multiple examples of reading journals and reader’s notebooks (including my own) on my Instagram, @NoteChef4u, as well as in the Chapter 6 section on the Creatively Productive companion site.
The Read Wide Challenge: I adore Roni Loren. Her newsletter is amazing! At the end of last year, she put out a Read Wide Challenge which I thought was awesome and really gave me some perspective into the why and the how of partaking of multiple genres. Not only does she do an awesome job of listing a multitude of genres and subgenres, I really like her reasoning on the importance of reading wide.
POPSUGAR Reading Challenge: I am also slightly obsessed with the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge as it is incredibly clever (PDF list here). Rather than choose a genre, you select a book “becoming a movie in 2019”, “with at least 1 million ratings on Goodreads”, “a book that takes place in a single day”, or “a retelling of a classic” and more. (Here is the 2020 version.)
Reader’s Notebook Tracking BuJo Examples: If you are looking for even more examples of what analog trackers might look like, I have curated a few more examples here… “Bullet Journal Setup Ideas for Readers”, “My 2019 Bullet Journal and Reading Trackers”, and “Bullet Journal Book Log Tutorial”.
Habit Tracking: If habit tracking is your jam, I have additional resources and links available in the Chapter 4 section of the Creatively Productive companion site.

Hope this helps you with your travels down the rabbit hole of all things reading journals, notebooks, and trackers…

FREEBIES AND GOODIES OH MY!

And Don’t forget ALL 3 Reading Trackers as well as lots more templates, digital downloads, goodies can be found in the Creatively Productive Digital Downloads Doc Locker. Just sign up using the form below and you will receive a link shortly with a secret link to the site and password to nab your freebies.