(modified from “Miss Brave teaches NYC”) Putting student goals into kid friendly language is important to ensuring students understand what it is they need to do to “be a better reader”. Goals writing for students should be a process of setting a direction and objective for learning, while providing feedback for growth. The goal should be criterion-referenced, so students have a specific target of knowledge or skill to focus on. Here are some examples of how to translate a desired skill into a goal with kid-friendly language: Check accuracy of decoding using context to monitor and self-correct. Kid Friendly Goal: My reading goal is to sound out tricky words and then ask myself: Does that sound right? Does that make sense? Blend sounds using knowledge of letter-sound correspondences in order to decode unfamiliar, but decodable, one-syllable grade-level words. My reading goal is to use what I know to help me sound out tricky words. My reading goal is to practice reading tricky words by looking for chunks of letters I already know. Increase background knowledge by elaborating and integrating new vocabulary and ideas from texts. My reading goal is to use words from the story to help me talk about my books. Answer simple questions (like how? why? what if?) in response to texts. My reading goal is to practice answering questions about my book, like: How did that happen? Why did that happen? Use comprehension strategies (such as predict/confirm, reread, self-correct) to clarify meaning of text. My reading goal is to read my books over to make sure I understand the story. My reading goal is to stop and make a prediction about what will happen next and then read on to find out if I am right. My reading goal is to listen to myself read the story to make sure all the words sound right. *Please use “kid friendly language” when writing goals with skills from CAFÉ from the Daily 5 Boushey & Moser or the Continuum of Literacy Learning from Fountas & Pinnell. The first goals for any child who is not doing these yet, should be:“I will read 20 minutes a night.” and “I will find books that interest me.” Using “Strategies” is also excellent for goal setting.