Tracking Goals

I think because I don't come from an education background I sometimes am backwards.  Then there are times when I see that as an advantage.  Coming from sales management it would be an understatement to say I spent some time with goals.  My job was goals; setting them, meeting them, beating them, focusing on them, and so much more.  I posted goals up in my house, on my dashboard, on my computer, on my screen saver, you name it I knew where to post that sucker.  When something is in your face all the time you can't help but focus on it.  We all have that student that is there all the time and they get 90% of our attention.  So, I do that with my goals... everywhere.

In my classroom we are all about a goal.  We have a reading goal and a math goal.  Fortunately our district has Accelerated Math and Accelerated Reading.  This makes tracking goals quite simple. If you don't have either of these programs you are really missing out.  Our district tracks reading based on words.  So I sat down and thought about how many words my kids could read and what I thought I would read.  I play along and the kids think that is fabulous.  When they see me read they are thrilled. At our monthly assembly readers are recognized- staff, students and community members.  It really is a team here.  Our math is tracked by objectives mastered.  On a side note, AR and AM solves the issue of "I am done what do I do now?"  The answer is always AM or AR.  So they don't even bother asking.

We have mega bulletin boards in the hallway... what better place to track goals.  So we have tracking sheets for words, math objectives, and a thermometer to track the combination.  Then on the board they all have a "backstage pass" and they get to put a sticker on their pass for every 10,000 words and every 5 math objectives.  They crack me up going through the hall counting stickers.  Inside their desks they have a sheet they color a square in every time the put a sticker on the board.  We are very in your face with the goals.  The kids love it!

Here is our goal board:

The kids also have individual goals for each independent book they get.  They always have 2 books going- reading group and independent (AR).  When they take a test on their AR book and pass it they take out a new book immediately.  Then I set a goal for them on the finish date.  I figure that by how many words are in the book, how many words per minute they can do, and figure they read 20 minutes a day 5 days a week.  Most of my kids read far more then that so meeting their goals is simple.  When they beat their goal they get a ticket, our source of currency and more on that in a later post.  Their goal is put on a "bookmark" for them.  They are required to keep that in their book.  Later I will upload my bookmark document into Google Docs if you are interested.  The great thing about this is your school doesn't need to be AR to do the goals.  You can use the AR site though to get word count... AR word count search.