Greetings, I receive digest and sometimes it's hard to pick material out but I see this:
> On 4/8/12 4:42 PM, "Jennifer Olimpieri" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi. I work in a k-5 school as a reading consultant. We currently have a >> monthly calendar that kids turn in to get a small prize. At the end of the >> year the get recognized, so on and so forth. However, the program is old and >> not very enticing. The younger ones are usually the ones turning in their >> calendars but mostly it is ineffective anymore. I would like to revitalize a >> school wide reading program. Does anyone have fresh and exciting ideas that >> is >> easily recordable but effective? I would live to hear ideas out there. >> Thanks! I just mention the following as angles our kids found quite fun and definitely made reading a highlight and something that was talked about and so on. For quite a few years I used our Peer Helpers group to run (and tally and so on) a school wide "Read-a-thon". Parents would sign for "pages read" (or you could add pages read at school too) and pizzas were bought for the highest scoring primary and intermediate classes at week's end. Yes we had "cheaters" in that kids would read material way below level and things like that -- but we did speak to each class separately as to "why" we were doing it and what would be appropriate. We didn't sweat the 'cheating' part. (One boy's mom "signed" that he had read "The Bible". His teacher talked to him about it! ;-) ) One year the librarian instituted a "Drop Everything and Read" (D.E.A.R.) week -- you were to have a book on you at all times (teachers also) and at random moments during the day, the principal would interrupt everything on the intercom with the bit of theme music. Then you were to stop what you were doing, grab your book and read for ten minutes (I sometimes partnered the younger kids for reading aloud). Yes, it was hectic and silly and definitely inconvenient at times -- but the kids got a huge kick out of exactly those features! It was fun, and jazzed things up for a time later in the year, when the kids have more outdoor activities calling (hopefully) and you need a bit of something to revive reading interest. Just a couple ideas we have used. At another school I buddied my primaries with a grade six-seven class for "TV studies buddies" and we had a "No TV week" that we coaxed and coached the parents to buy into -- it was a lot of work in the 'softening up' of parents and kids (for reception of this) but we had really good buy in and ... more reading! One intermediate student wrote in his journal, "No TV week sucks. Now I really really really know what it feels like to be addicted to something." !! Good luck, Linda Rightmire SD #73 Kamloops, BC _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
