ELEM: Rewards

[Rosemary and Gregory Meece <grrmgr@BELLATLANTIC.NET>]

Greetings,

    I've been following the thread concerning rewards and overdue books and
would like to add my own experience.

    This past year was my first year as a LMS and right off the bat each
class had overdue lists  too long for comfort.  I did two things:

1.  I typed up big reminders for each student's folder in grades 1-3.  The
reminder was in bold
 print, in large font, and on contrasting color paper (yellow, pink, blue,
etc.).
(MY LIBRARY DAY IS MONDAY)  I asked the teacher to staple this reminder to
each student's take-home folder.  (I added that I could do the stapling
myself if the teacher was pressed for time.)  The teachers happily complied
with my request and stapled the reminders into the students' folders, thus
assuring that the reminders would be seen by home on a regular basis.  This
really helped cut down on overdues. (I left the 4-5 grades to remember on
their own, but you could put the notices in their folders too).

2.  I kept a chart of classes with good return records.  Each class was
allowed three or less overdues each week (not including absent students).
Three or less overdues earned the class a star on the chart.  Classes with
the most stars at the end of a certain time period (maybe a marking period)
earned them an ice cream treat.  This really worked well too.  You could use
any number besides three overdues, obviously, but for my situation, that was
a workable number.  Maybe this year I'll change it to two!

  Have a good year, everyone!

Rosemary Meece
LMS Cecil Manor Elementary School
971 Elk Mills Road
Elkton, MD  21921

rmeece@ccps.org (work)
grrmgr@bellatlantic.net (home)

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