Reading Log +

Do you have students fill in Reading Logs? What goals do you set? Do they turn them in at the end of the week or end of the month? A reading log is basically just a way to keep up with how many minutes, pages, and books your students are reading. This amazing app works for you in your classroom or for parents to keep at home. It's fairly simple to set up, set goals, and send reports straight to you, the teacher.

The app is called Reading Log + from Jump Gap Software. It's a paid app for $1.99.

Once you install the app you can add different readers (students) and they can add their books, set their goals, and track their reading.

ADDING READERS

From the front page, click the + sign on the top right corner. Add the name, picture, goal setting start day, and report email. Give parents your email and they can put your email here and send you reports as often as you'd like! You can change these settings at any time by clicking the blue cog below their picture.

ADDING BOOKS

Notice at the bottom there are 3 icons: Library, Goals, and Reports. Let's first add some books.  Click the Library icon. Click the + sign at the top right of the page. From this point there are various ways to add a book: scan book, search, browse, and manual entry. You can add books from your library or reading list.  Students can also add the books they are reading. Whichever way you decide, you MUST add the books to your library BEFORE students can start tracking their reading.

MODIFY GOAL SETTINGS

You can delete and add goals. There are 4 preset goals: minutes per month, minutes per week, pages per month, pages per week.

MODIFY REPORT SETTINGS

You can delete and add reports. There are 4 preset reports: last month's reading, last week's reading, this month's reading, and this week's reading.  However, when you actually get ready to compile and send a report you can modify some of the report settings there as well. 

TRACKING READING

Once you have added your readers they can start tracking their reading. The reader can click on their name and they will see the bullseye to set goals and an add book icon. Click the Add Book icon to add any book from the Library. Multiple books can be added at once. Scroll through the icons at the top to scroll through goals, books, and reports. 

Click the Add Goals and choose which goal you would like to track. Readers can track minutes weekly or monthly or pages weekly or monthly. If you have set other goals they can choose those from the list.

Readers can then choose the book they are going to read. They can also do their tracking after they have read. To track a book, edit your start page and ending page and save it. You can also track minutes in three ways. Scrolling up the reader will see the time settings. Scrolling to the side readers can  set a timer up to 120 minutes, a stopwatch, or manual entry. Once the reader has entered their time click save.  If they go back to goals they will be able to see their progress in a bar graph.

Once the week or month is over, the reader can then send you a report via email. You can look at saved reports from this screen as well. Select the time range can also be set to include custom date ranges. Click the report options you'd like to include, then click create report. You will be able to see the report on this screen. Click the share icon on the top right and choose Send Email. It will email whatever email you set in the reader settings when you added them. To change emails, click the blue cog on the main page under the reader's picture.

This app makes it easy and gets rid of the paper! It is also a great way not just to keep a reading log for participation and/or homework purposes.  This is a great app for classroom reading contests too.

How would you use this app in your classroom?