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I apologize for taking so long to post this hit. Below are the suggestions
that were sent to me. I appreciate all of the replies I received and plan to
implement some of them.

1.  I have organized a reading contest which is held between two classes at a
time.  Each class is a team and selects award-winning books from a cart.
At the end of three weeks, these books are returned and the classes read
each others books.  At the end of six weeks the two classes sit as teams
in the library where I take turns asking the teams short answer questions
about the books.  The right to answer first rotates.  At the end of the
period, the team with the most points is declared a winner.

The teachers support this contest in many ways--they help read and make
questions on each year's crop of best books.  They give class time
occasionally for reading the books.  They assign projects dealing with
the books--quite often the students are asked to make up questions.  The
contest is a lot of fun and has sometimes ended in a tie.  The teachers
decide how they will reward the winning team.  We call the contest BOOK
CHALLENGE but since that now has the connotation of a book censorship I
will probably rename it.  I am thinking of making the bibliography and
questions available through some company since I am retiring this year.
It has served our purposes very well.

2.  Watch for a book coming out this late spring from Neal Schuman on reading
incentives...written by the Jays.  It may help you.  Simple to year long
types included.

3.  Our school has a reading program called the Barracuda Bookmark Club.  The
barracuda is our mascot.  We have a reading period every day.  The students
need to fill in a bookmark size form with basic info about the book - title,
author, genre, characters, plot, setting, lesson learned, 5 new words with
definitions.  The bookmark is signed by their teacher and a parent.

Incentives have been provided by Papa John's Pizza and McDonald's.  Bookmarks
are counted by the quarter.  Teachers keep records of the book titles in their
classrooms and then give the bookmarks to me.  I use a spreadsheet program to
record numbers.  Examples of incentives are:  3 bookmarks = an ice cream from
McDonalds, 5 = an order of breadsticks from Papa John's, 7 = hamburger, 10 = a
class pizza party from Papa John's.  We also have a drawing every week and
pick three names for a free book.  I have about 200 paperbacks from our last
book fair.  I also distribute the incentive coupons.

4.  I have run several contests over the years, and my most successful have
always been for the *chance* to win a bigger prize, rather than guaranteed
smaller prizes.  My middle schoolers are no longer very interested in
stickers, bookmarks, etc.--the small stuff that is of value to the
elementary kids.  However, they have responded well to a chance for
something larger i.e.  if you complete this contest, or this part of the
contest, you can put your name into a box for a drawing for ---- ??  They
also like multiple chances to enter.  I have given an opportunity to go to
the movies in a group of 4 (which I took in my car).  (There is no theater
in our town, so this is a bigger thing here since we have to drive 30 min.
than it might be other places).  I have given stuffed animals, small boom
box, really nifty posters, gift certificates (I buy the stuff out of money
from my book fair profits).
I have tried ensuring that students read by 1. parental signature, 2. write
a short synopsis of certain parts, 3. threat of an oral quiz by me on
entries selected at random.  I like the parent signature, because even
though I know lots of parents will sign whether they know their child read
or not, I still think it is good PR for what the library is doing.
My most successful contests have lasted about 3-4 weeks; much longer is
hard to sustain the enthusiasm.  I also have often had some kind of class
competition in conjunction with results posted in the commons and a class
prize for most entries, most pages read, etc.

5.  For the past two years, we've
had a "Who Can Read More than Mrs. Richmond" contest.  It has been
successful in that I have been able to identify most of my "readers" very
quickly.  Students keept track of their own titles in a binder on the
circulation desk.  My list is on the facing page.  If you read more than
ten, you are invited to a grade level party.  All those reading more than
me get a prize (free book from the book fair).  Last year my top reader
read 125 books.  Mostly adult novels.  He was in 8th.  In 2nd place was a
6th grade girl with 124 books.  She ran through a couple of series,
augmented by some of the "good" stuff.  Hope this helps.

Katherine Farrington
Librarian
Eisenhower Middle School
Norristown, PA
KEF22872@aol.com

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