Anyone doing their own "Summer Reading" reward system? (a la library)?

[madteaparty]

We are moving, and travelling, and not able to make the logistics work with a local branch. my kid is externally motivated so I'd like to compile a little program for him. I am thinking of having him type the "reviews" for each book or being even more structured and asking him to answer 3 questions about each book or some such.

 

Have you done something similar? Care to share the mechanics?

many thanks!

[asmall]

How about using book adventure. There are simple quizs for books and you earn points for prizes.

www.bookadventure.com

AL

[Tita Gidge]

I haven't, but my kids aren't externally motivated and it's never been a problem getting them to read. I have to fight them to put books down, in fact.

 

But in your situation I'd totally consider it!

 

How old is your son? I like the idea of typing out a small review or answering questions. Maybe pick up a teacher workbook type thing at the library or bookstore and flip through it for ideas. Depending on his personality, maybe he'd like to do activities like Venn Diagrams, character analyses, setting compare/contrast, etc. as a way to demonstrate his reading time. They're set to every level for early elementary through middle school and would take nothing more than few photocopies, if that.

[happypamama]

I haven't, but my mom used to make ones for us, to encourage my brothers (who didn't like to read) to read and to encourage me (a bookworm) to get out of my comfort zone and try different genres. One year she had a roadmap sort of thing (like a CandyLand board, IIRC), and at specific points along the way, we earned small prizes, leading to a larger one later. Another year, she made a BINGO type board with different types of books on it, and as we got 5 in a row, we earned a small prize, again working up to a larger one. So in order to get BINGO, I had to find things like a sports book to read; I had zero interest in sports and balked at that, but I ended up finding a good gymnastics book and liked it, so it was a Good Thing that Mom did to make me try something new.

 

Elizabeth Foss has a bunch of fun narration ideas in this post (scroll down to the bottom); my daughter likes writing amazon-style reviews of books. http://www.elizabethfoss.com/reallearning/2012/02/could-it-be-a-storybook-year.html

[Kelly1730]

I haven't, but my mom used to make ones for us, to encourage my brothers (who didn't like to read) to read and to encourage me (a bookworm) to get out of my comfort zone and try different genres. One year she had a roadmap sort of thing (like a CandyLand board, IIRC), and at specific points along the way, we earned small prizes, leading to a larger one later. Another year, she made a BINGO type board with different types of books on it, and as we got 5 in a row, we earned a small prize, again working up to a larger one. So in order to get BINGO, I had to find things like a sports book to read; I had zero interest in sports and balked at that, but I ended up finding a good gymnastics book and liked it, so it was a Good Thing that Mom did to make me try something new.

 

Elizabeth Foss has a bunch of fun narration ideas in this post (scroll down to the bottom); my daughter likes writing amazon-style reviews of books. http://www.elizabeth...ybook-year.html

 

 

I am doing a version of the book bingo with my rising 6th graders. They love to read but would stick with the same genre if not motivated to try something else. Every row gets a prize from the box and the entire card filled will get them cash for the bookstore.

[Word Nerd]

I made bingo cards and listed titles of books I would like to encourage my kids to read. I gave them several "your choice" spaces too.

[PIE!]

I second trying book adventure. They take care if quizzes and points. You can go with their prizes and/or add your own. I like to keep things simple that way.

[weederberries]

My 6 year old was super motivated to create a video review of a book. So, when he finished the Junie B Jones series, I taped him reviewing a book and even added it to amazon.com. He was thrilled. It was a good motivator, though he was already mostly through the series when he suggested that be his reward.

[melbotoast]

We recently started a reward system for quiet reading time. Every 15 minutes of quiet reading time gets a marble in a jar. We just filled the jar up so I took the kids to Goodwill and they picked out a few new books for their prize.

[Rubix]

My daughter has a list for reading books that holds 15 books. For every page completed, she gets to choose a prize from our "treasure box". Once three are completed, she gets a coupon for an ice cream out somewhere. She is 6, so these are short books, like Henry and Mudge or Magic School Bus. For older kids, 15 books might be excessive ;)

[vonfirmath]

We are moving, and travelling, and not able to make the logistics work with a local branch. my kid is externally motivated so I'd like to compile a little program for him. I am thinking of having him type the "reviews" for each book or being even more structured and asking him to answer 3 questions about each book or some such.

 

Have you done something similar? Care to share the mechanics?

many thanks!

 

 

Target's Dollar Bins has some "Book Tracking" type books -- in the same places with the Spring Book fair books.

[vonfirmath]

My daughter has a list for reading books that holds 15 books. For every page completed, she gets to choose a prize from our "treasure box". Once three are completed, she gets a coupon for an ice cream out somewhere. She is 6, so these are short books, like Henry and Mudge or Magic School Bus. For older kids, 15 books might be excessive ;)

 

 

When my son signed up for the library reading thing, he originally committed to 100 books (He's 6. He likes large numbers) I thought that number was high and encouraged him to choose a smaller number and he counted the lines on the page and lowered it to 41.

 

I have no idea what happens when they reach their goal. But I figure since its so high I feel entirely justified trading off reading with him and letting him count piddly 24 page board books as well as longer ones. So far he's reading a good assortment of books. (he's up to 19. Finished the front of the page and turned over to the back.)

 

But we are also doing the Barnes & Noble challenge (that only requires 8 books) so he'll get a faster reward. I'm afraid he'll get discouraged otherwise.

[Ecclecticmum]

In return for getting books

 

I have a set of bookmarks with ring that I got off Rainbow Resource coming.

 

I plan to use them 1. as a bookmark for that book (each bookmark is meant to be for one book), a reading log (since it stores on the ring) and a narration/summary of the book (depending upon complexity either she writes it herself or I write her narration).

 

This is for beginning reader, but perhaps you could apply the same idea to index cards? Front of it the child writes information on the book (year/title/subject etc) and back summarisation? And perhaps also adding vocabulary/words the child didn't know?

 

To Make Them *Want* to read books

 

For every card he hands in, he gets a ticket, a certain amount of tickets is worth a certain "prize" (1 ticket could be spend 2 hours at a friends/watch an hour of tv), 5 tickets could be to see/rent/watch a movie of his choice, 20 tickets could mean a new bike (or baseball glove or whatever) all of course based upon his particular "loves". He could also trade in each ticket when he has a certain amount of single tickets, for a "bigger ticket" (.i.e. higher value) plus a free notebook, or comic etc (reward for saving tickets, rather than straight out spending them)

 

Working the rewards for different angles can also help him in other areas. Use pennies instead of tickets, work in math equations (division, geometry, whatever) that to figure out what the "new weeks prizes" (even if he doesn't get anything, change the smaller token items for different things) so "30 minutes of TV requires (math problem) pennies".

 

To make reading not too expensive when having to buy books

 

Another option when you have a voracious reader is to look at the option of an ebook reader, there are many books that can be downloaded for free.

 

If your child is into books you don't feel is particular worthy of being scanned through and left to gather dust, a way to "stretch" that story out of them is to use a similar idea to the reward system above, but a prequel. In order for them to get XYZ Book they want first they have to read 2-6 (your choice of numbers) of the books you select (free books round the web, quality books you managed to nab at garage sales). Not only will this allow you to space out the time between purchasing XYZ, but the child will savour the story more when only allowed it after reading other stories given to them (my mother took this approach with me, rofl.

 

I was reading before I entered school, and after being in school, I discovered Scholastic Book Club and was hooked. My mother never limited books, but the rule was I did all my homework, no complaining, and spent some time reading from her library. If I did all that, when it was bookclub time, I was allowed to choose whatever books I wanted (bookclub ordering wasn't *that* often). I spent my free time ensconced in encyclopedias and antique/vintage texts, plus the occasional medical thriller (but that wasn't counted in my "library time", however it did kindle my interest in science, and today I still love any medical books or movies, and I have fond memories of those encyclopedia sets). I was a (still am) very fast and voracious reader, however, but I go through spurts of reading a heap of books, to dragging through one (barely reading, or stopped/paused) and doing other activities, whether this is because of my upbringing or not, no idea, but it is rather curious.

 

To get my daughter to do stuff she doesn't want to, I always use the reward chart idea, without a chart. But never give "immediate" rewards (they have to "save" up to get anything, for chores for instance, only 5 days worth of tickets equals a token, and stuff can only be "purchased" with tokens (and purchases are a mixture from items like letting them play on the computer, to a page of stickers, all the way upto purchasing a Horse Model (about $40-60 retail). If they miss morning chores (they have both morning and evening chores) they don't get a ticket for that day, only if they do the full days chores).

 

To slow her down from stuff she wants to do, I dangle the "treat" offered towards the end of a big goal/step (for reading, it is once you can fluently read simple CVC sentences (no stutter or pausing) you can join the bookclub. (She couldn't blend, and kept stepping backwards). Shes now flying forward. I am currently doing the same with her math, once she masters the concepts I need her to master, I will remove the last of the "dreaded" worksheets from her math curricula (I want to keep her moving forward and reviewing certain concepts, but I had to back her up a bit on something else because for some reason our old math curriculum didn't cover it) so I'm using the Math sheets as a review of her "current" concepts whilst going back over earlier ones to find the problem spots.

 

A bit rambly, but hopefully that helps somewhat :/

[SFM]

We have a small library here and they are doing a Summer Reading Program for every 6 hours of reading you get a small prize. At 24 hours you get entered into the grand prize. He set a personal goal of 100 hours from this week until August 7th, he asked if he reached his goal if I would buy him a book series. Like How to Train Your Dragon, Harry Potter, or The Warriors to which I gladly agreed.