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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 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-= To quit LM_NET (or set NOMAIL or DIGEST), Send an email message to listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL or 3) SET LM_NET DIGEST * NOTE: Please allow time for confirmation from Listserv. For LM_NET Help & Archives see: http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=