Goal Setting

You all know as much as I do how important it is to motivate your kiddies and get them to "own" their learning. (That's half the battle right there!) If they don't have a drive to learn, or understand where they are now and where they are going, it's a lot more difficult to get them where they need to be! ;) I've tried a lot of things in the past in terms of goal-setting and I've come to a few conclusions:

A. Yes. Kindergartners understand goal setting and benefit highly from it. 

B. You should have more than one way for the kids to see their goal and record progress. 

C. Guide your little ones in goal setting. Don't simply do it for them. ;)

OK, so the third one seems pretty obvious but it's crazy how many people are surprised when I tell them that! Kindergartners can do it, you just have to model and guide them to be realistic and give them a visual to help them see progress! Once they reach their first goal, they get SO excited and can't wait to set the next one, and they get better each time. 

The second point makes sense because, as we all know, no two children are exactly alike and they don't all learn and understand things the exact same way. (One of the many reasons why teachers are AMAZING! ;))

Here are the 3 reading goal setting methods I use in my classroom:

1. The "Goal Trail"

The goal trail is up in my room on meet the teacher night and stays up all year. My room is western-themed, but you could of course tweak this idea to fit your own room theme! :) I get these cute little Western Stick Kids from Teacher Tools to move along the trail; and I take pictures of each of the kids at the beginning of the year and glue a picture of their face to make it more "personal". (I've done it with numbers before and I swear they get so much more motivated just seeing their little faces!) 

I divide the trail into sections, ending the trail at the grade-level EOY expectation. I also leave a spot just above the EOY level for those who exceed the EOY expectations. Those friends can look at the dot chart (see #2) for their actual level! :) As they reach independence with the next level, they get to move their little "trail rider" up to the next level! They LOVE it!! :)

2. The Dot Chart

So, it's not "western" but I didn't have any luck finding a western one, so I figured dots... dot chart... ya know. ;) Basically, the idea here is that not only do the kids have a visual of where they are now, they have a visual of their progress and where they've come from. I use rainbow smiley stickers to track their progress: Red-BOY, Orange-January, and so on. (Hey, why not review Science at the same time? Can't get enough rainbows! Haha!) This is also where my more "advanced" friends can see their current levels. (Can't leave out those sweet babies!) Be sure to have a "key" at the bottom like I do for parent conferences; and it's also great practice for the little ones on how to use a key!

I mark the MOY grade-level expectation column with yellow, and the EOY grade-level expectation column with green so that they can easily see how close they are to their next goal! :)

 3. Student Goal Folders

 These are my individual goal setting tools. The kids LOVE these because they get to COLOR! Woo hoo! :) I splurge 'cause I love my kiddies and buy the multi-colored file folders...ooooooh! (The set I buy comes with blue, green, red, and yellow, and they LOVE getting to pick a color!) Each kid decorates and labels their own folder with whatever they want, and inside they have this little progress recording graph. 

Get excited now, cause they get to use their favorite color to record their progress! Wooo! But these folders are truly the best because this is where we set INDIVIDUAL goals together. I help "guide" each friend to their goal based on where they are at the beginning of the year, and how much progress they make in the first two months. Then we put a "yellow" line for their individual MOY goal, and a "green" line for their individual EOY goal. Sometimes we get to draw another line because they reach their green goal early and they get SUPER pumped about that! :)

And there you have it! Not too much work on your part, and it makes a WORLD of difference! :) These are just my goal-setting tools for reading. There are more to come I promise!

These tools are also a great thing for parent-teacher conferences. You've got the visual right there for them in 3 different ways, so they not only understand their child's goal, they also understand the importance. ;) Aaaaannnnd if the student comes with, you can have THEM tell their parents about it! And that, my friends, is a powerful tool.

-Kinderella