6 Easy (but Impactful) Ways Teachers Can Use the Reading Journal to Celebrate Student Reading

Back in September, we launched the Reading Journal, a new feature in Reading Eggs.

The Reading Journal is an interactive book record that celebrates all the reading your students do in the Library and lists all the books (or chapters) read by them.

It’s not only a celebration of your students’ reading journey; it can also be used to promote reading for pleasure in the classroom. Here are six simple but effective ways to use it in class.

1. Celebrate your students’ reading milestones

There are over 15 different certificates for teachers to use when students reach a new reading milestone.

The Reading Journal celebrates reading milestones and rewards students for achieving continuous reading streaks. For every milestone reached, they receive a virtual sticker pack, a certificate, and a motivational reading poster.

When your students have read successfully for a consecutive number of days, why not print out these special printable certificates and display them in your classroom, reading corners and libraries to encourage students to keep reading?

These certificates can be found in your Teacher Dashboard, under the Printables Library.

Or you can hold weekly certificate sessions in class to acknowledge students who have reached a new reading milestone. Students reach milestones in the Reading Journal when they read successfully for every 5, 10, 25 and 50 days. The number of days progressively lengthens to reinforce daily reading habits.

2. Extend students' reading choices with book collections

Use the Teacher Library to support your students’ interests and book choices. Have students who love dinosaurs? Create and share a dinosaur book collection that matches their reading level!

The Teacher Library allows you to access all the books from the Library in your Teacher Dashboard, so you can create custom book collections in just minutes!

There are over 3,500 nonfiction and fiction digital books to choose from, with filter functions to help you narrow your choices. All you need is a few seconds to find the perfect book for each student. These shared collections will appear in your students’ Library dashboard, bundled as ‘Your Books’ on top of the librarian's desk.

3. Encourage them to read more

If your students read books beyond the Reading Eggs Library, encourage them to include what they’ve read in the Journal’s Reading Record page to add to their ever-growing book list!

4. Celebrate the number of books read

Here’s a way to celebrate reading as a class. Collate and showcase all the books your students have read at the end of each month.

Print out their book list at the end of each month and do a total of all the books and words read collectively as a class, including yours! Challenge the class with a higher target for the next month.

5. Monthly Reading Champion

To celebrate each student’s efforts, acknowledge the top three readers in your class (students who read the most books) at the end of each month. Reward them with a book badge, sticker or bookmark.

You can also hand out a special award to the most improved or outstanding reader (the student who had the biggest increase in books read from the previous month).

6. Reflect on their reading progress

Help students reflect on their reading progress. By the end of the school year, their Reading Journals will be a unique record of every book they have read in the Library.

Run through each student’s book list on your class screen and share it with the whole class. Ask them what book they enjoyed reading the most in the past year and why, and what they look forward to reading in the following school year. Praise them for their reading efforts and acknowledge how they’ve progressed.