Behavior as a Goal

We typically think of goals set during reading as academic, or reading based, and most are. However, in the first few days of school and as needed throughout the year, we may be meeting with students and identifying strategies to improve their on-task behavior. In his book Lost at School, Ross W. Greene (2014) writes that "challenges occur because of lagging skills and unsolved problems and should be approached with precisely the same mentality, and in the same manner as academic challenges" (168). We address behaviors through individual conferences. When students have an area of need in reading, we confer about it to set a goal. Similarly, when students have an area of need in school behaviors, we confer about it to set a goal. Some students will have behavior goals well before their reading goals are identified. And some students may have a behavior goal throughout the year.

When deciding if a student could benefit from a behavior goal, we look to the behaviors articulated along the bottom of the CAFE Menu and ask ourselves if the student is able to

• read the whole time, 
• get started right away,
• stay in one spot, 
• build stamina, 
• work quietly,
• ignore distractions,
• and persevere. 

If we have a student who is not progressing with one or more of these behaviors, we will confer with them, set a behavior goal, choose one of the strategies, and teach them the behaviors to be successful.