The challenge
Nicole Blakey, a 4th grade teacher in California, was concerned about her students’ lack of interest in independent reading. “I could see that reading had become just a chore for them, rather than something that they were excited to do.”
As she watched interest in reading fall year after year, Nicole identified book quizzes as a main problem for her students. “It was extremely disheartening,” Nicole says. “I would see students read books only to consistently fail book quizzes and look completely defeated.”
Additionally, quizzes, or the lack thereof, were preventing students from reading what they wanted. “I would constantly see students excited to choose a book to read, only to watch them put it back down and say, ‘Oh, nevermind, there isn’t a quiz for it,’ or ‘I can’t read that because it is only 2 points.’”
The solution: Bookroo Classroom reading challenges
Nicole decided to switch from using book quizzes to verify reading to instead motivating reading through 40-book style reading challenges. When she began searching for tools to help her run challenges, she discovered Bookroo Classroom, a new classroom software that makes it easy to set up and track a 40-book style reading challenge.
She quickly set up individual challenges for each of her fourth graders and immediately started seeing results. “Within the first month of school, my class of 25 students had already read 274 books! I sent an email to our principal letting him know the amazing things I was seeing with my students.”
With challenges that were easy for her to create and fun for students to complete, Nicole knew she had found the solution she was searching for.
“Bookroo has been amazing! Not only are the kids motivated to meet their book challenge goals, they are being introduced to genres and discovering new books they would have never known they would enjoy reading otherwise.”
“Bookroo has had a big part in putting the motivation and excitement back into reading for my students and I have found great value in using the platform! We can’t thank Bookroo enough!”