This is an awesome idea I got from Franki Sibberson and Karen Szymusiak's book, Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop. The idea of Status of the Class is to orally check in on my readers every day in a quick, efficient way.

At the beginning of IDR time each day, the teacher calls out students' names. They respond by telling the name of the book they are reading and the page they are on. While I have found that it is a bit time consuming to do this for each child every day, I try to call out 5–6 students' names each day. That way I am checking in on most readers twice a week even if I don't get a chance to meet with them in an individual conference or in a small group setting.

This is a great way to:

• Document each child's reading.
• Hold students accountable for being tuned in to where they are in their reading.
• Allow other students to hear what their peers are reading. (It often creates interest in certain books or series.)
• Monitor how quickly students are finishing their books.
• Notice the variety of genres (or lack of variety) each student is reading.
• Determine if students are reading "just right" books.
• Connect students who have similar tastes in books. You can find Status of the Class recording forms in Sibberson and Szymusiak's book, Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop.