iRead, Do You?

Last year I started a punch card reward system to encourage students to read often and to read a variety of different books each month.   K and 1st grade students read 5 books a month to receive a prize and 2nd-5th have to read 5 specific types of books a month to receive a prize.

To go with the Rock Star theme this year, I designed "iReader" punch cards. The kids have loved them!  When they turn in their completed iReader, they get to pick a prize from the Rockin' Reader Prize Cart.  The Prize Cart gets pretty bare by the end of the month which means students are reading!  I spend about $80/month on prizes from Oriental Trading to load up the cart, but it's totally worth it.  You can read more about this program here.

To track our progress this year, I decided to display the iReaders in the hallway once they were turned it.  This is what it looks like so far this year.

K and 1st have their own board.  This is K's board. 

Source

Recently I read the book Igniting A Passion for Reading: Successful Strategies for Building Lifetime Readers by Steven L. Layne and I was inspired to create my own iReader so that I can model being a good reader.

To be fair, I made my iReader with 10 spaces.  I have been listing the title, author, AR level and number of pages for each book I read and so far, students have been very excited to see what the Book Bug is reading.  I have also challenged them to try to complete their iReader before I complete mine.  We have some really good readers here so I am sure there will be a few who will complete theirs first.

I love it when an idea works, don't you?

P.S. If you are interested in the iReaders, you can purchase a sample pack on my Teacher's Dojo store by clicking HERE or on the picture above.

Or you can purchase the complete pack by clicking here or on the picture above.

If you are using the iReaders or a similar program, I'd love to hear how it's going for you.  =)

Prize Buggy

At the beginning of the year, I decided that the MC needed a reading theme that would tie everything together. I came up with "Catch the Reading Bug."  I even made a brochure that outlined all of the neat programs the MC would be running throughout the year.  You can see a copy of it by clicking on the picture below.

One of the programs I have really enjoyed and that seems to have been very effective is the Prize Buggy Punch Card.

Here's how it works.  At the beginning of each month, K-5 students receive a punchcard with 5 slots to get punched.  Second through fifth grade students are encouraged to read at least one book from the Genre of the Month as well as an AR book and 3 other books or other media of their choice.  K and 1st grade students are encouraged to read 5 of any type of material.  After reading each material, they get a punch in their punch card.  When they have completed their punch card, they bring it to the Media Center and pick a prize from the Prize Buggy, with the exception of  K and 1st grade. They come as a class at the end of the month to the Prize Buggy.

Here's the front and side view of the Prize Buggy.  It's really just an AV cart that I decorated with fabric and loaded up with white baskets full of prizes.

Here are some close ups of the prizes.

Since the reading theme is "Catch the Reading Bug" all of the prizes are bug related.  I get the prizes from Oriental Trading.  I spend about $50 a month, which to me is a very insignificant amount to pay for encouraging the kids to read.  When I ran a circulation report and compared each month to last year, circulation has double and sometimes tripled since last  year.  Students, parents, and teachers seem to really like this program and I am so happy that it has encouraged the kids to pick up books that they might not have otherwise read.

Here are some pictures of the students choosing their prizes.  Even the fifth graders love it!

This is just one of the exciting programs I started this year.  If you'd like to know more, you can click here to read descriptions of all the Media Programs I am running.  I'd love to hear what you think.