I was tired of my plain old reading logs with spots for the date, title of the book(s) read and parent signature. My students were not motivated or excited. I only had about 75% of reading logs signed daily. The others... I was lucky if they were signed once a month. Were the students who had their reading logs signed daily actually reading for 20 minutes? Probably not. I think that, for the parents, as long as their child read SOMETHING, they signed the reading log.
Then I saw a few versions of Reading BINGO. Of course I needed something different. Reading logs for my dual language first grade classroom have to be in both English AND Spanish (back-to-back with the same options in both languages), simple enough for firsties, and easy enough for them to accomplish all of the tasks (keeping in mind many things including lack of resources at home and a big range of reading abilities).
I created four versions of Reading BINGO in a 4x4 grid. Parents are only supposed to sign off on one square per day. That doesn't mean that students can't do more than one in a day, but they need to choose which box they want to mark off. When they have the entire card filled out, they can turn it in for a prize of the teacher's choosing.
My plan is to start this with my new group right away in the fall. Right now I have a few very eager guinea pigs testing it out. They were so excited to be the special testers and to show me what they had done each day. My sister, who teaches in a bilingual kindergarten class of all native Spanish-speakers, started doing this with her whole class. She said that her students are motivated and loving it too. Starting it mid-year, she did have to answer a few questions from parents, but it has been very well received by parents and students alike.
If you want to grab these worksheets for your class, there are three options available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. You can get the Spanish only version here, the English only version here, or the bilingual bundle here. All versions also include an editable PowerPoint template to create your own Reading BINGO. Enjoy!
