Incentives and Rewards for Participating in a Reading Program
The cost of these books and bookmarks from AKJ Educational Services is $774, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
I am a computer lab manager for grades 4,5,& 6 in a small rural community in Louisiana. Our entire enrollment for grades K-8 is under 700 students. This year we have enrolled many displaced students due to Hurricane Katrina.
I work with technology every day and thoroughly enjoy watching the children learn and mastering the challenges that they meet in computer lab. However, I have also noticed that in this "click happy" world that they are growing up in, many of them are not taking the time to read. They do not take the opportunity to get lost in a book for entertainment or read a book to gain new knowledge.
Accelerated Reader (AR) is a reading program that encourages a child to read. The student reads an AR book and then comes to the lab and takes an AR Quiz on that book. The student will receive a certain amount of points depending on how many questions the student answers correctly. Points are based on the difficulty of the book. So you see not only are they reading, but they are also learning to comprehend what they read.
Once a student reaches 10 points, I place his name on a special bulletin board and he receives a reward from our AR store. When he reaches 20 points he moves to the 20 point board and receives a little bigger or better incentive or reward, and so on.
I service approximately 300 students, so buying rewards and incentives for the AR store has become difficult and can be very expensive. It would be wonderful to have some new and interesting incentives for the students.
This program helps the students become competitive with their reading and they look forward to their names being called out and receiving their rewards. Reading is such an important skill for students, and like anything else, the more you practice, the better you become.
What I need to make this program more successful are incentives and rewards for the students.
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