Re: reading incentive programs - overview

["Claudia A. Stephens" <cstephen@MAIL.ORION.ORG>]

Last year my principal's idea was to cut out a little brown book, write
the title & the child's name on it, and put it up in the hall with plastitak
for each book any child read. This was really time consuming---and then
he issued a 15,000! challenge. Actually, it worked. Our school of 498
1-6th graders read 15,908 books from Sept - May 20 (when I stopped
cutting out the little brown books.
As the librarian, I put the reading incentive on my career ladder plan,
so I was compensated for my time at home, but it isn't something I would
do again without alot of volunteer help. To be fair, I did have two moms
who helped out occasionally...and I am forever grateful. However, the
incentive was effective-but time consuming. The payoff was that if we
reached our goal, the principal had to sit on the roof all day on the
last day of school....which, of course he did. Our entire building was
decorated with the books bearing our students' names and the titles they
read.
Claudia Stephens
Ozark, MO