I want to set up a reading reward scheme in Yr 2 - any ideas ?

[Iwanttoseethesea]

Hi, I'm at TA in a year 2 class and I'm looking to set up a good reading reward scheme for the kids when they read at home. We tried one last year where the kids had stickers on a chart for how many times they read at home , then the child with the most got a dip in the teachers box of treats ( pencils, rubbers etc) .

The only problem was the same boy won every week and always got the treat so the scheme kind of withered away.

I'm looking for a fun way to reward reading at home - help!

TIA

I only started this thread for a bit of advice. It seems to have taken on a life of its own .....

shoe box = any box

Yeah I am new to forum, I found it when I was researching something for parents evening :)

haha iwenttothesea :)
Teaching is a passionate job, no surprise to me people get passionate in their beliefs

Iwanttoseethesea re the library. Our council runs a holiday reading scheme...kids go independently to the library in the summer holidays. They sign up to read six books. They get a bookmark and some stickers. Every time they get a new book, they get a stamp on their bookmark. If they read all their chosen books, they get a certificate in school assembly in september. Does yours do anything like that?

I think you'd struggle to get kids signed up without parental consent...the library needs to know who to contact when the books don't get returned! . You could probably have a class card....maybe the reading reward could be a trip to the library to choose books for the class. Or maybe a weekly trip to the library with all the kids to have a story time there?

Another thing my kids school does is to get older kids from the local comp to come in and listen to the little ones read. They use it as a 'community project' towards qualifications or DofE.

I work in a school where 95% of parents will not and do not support any kind of home learning (for a variety of reasons). We manage to achieve everything we can within school hours.

We also do a class 'read off'. Books are available at breaks and dinner time. Every book that is read is put on a class tally chart. The class who has read the most books at the end of the week wins a prize.

Good luck with your plans!

I work in a school where 95% of parents will not and do not support any kind of home learning (for a variety of reasons). We manage to achieve everything we can within school hours.

I have worked in some of the poorest areas in the country. That is shocking. You should evaluate some of your procedures.

Our London borough signs up all the kids to the local library via the primary schools - they get a (in our case, second) library card, a trip to the library each year and an assembly from the librarian who specialises in children's books. So it must be possible.

The card is different to the normal ones, only six books and no fines. And it somehow links to the Summer Reading Challenge, which they also get signed up to automatically (though I think there was an option to opt out, by letter).

What about rural areas where it's a two or three bus journey of two hours to the nearest library?

Mrz do rural areas not have the mobile library visiting them ? Or does that not exist anymore ?

In my village it's Wednesday lunchtime 12-1pm

In more rural areas it's something like once a month

mrz I was responding to the poster about whether it was possible for schools to do this in terms of data protection. And ime it must be, as ours does. I do entirely take your point about lack of accessible libraries in some areas, though.

My school gets boxes of books from my county library service fir children to borrow so effectively we run the library in school. The downside is that by the time the boxes are changed children have exhausted the choice.

Kinglooie - I have never had it that a child never virtually reads.

TeacherBob what the hell does this mean? In English.

I believe that reading with a child every day is just as fundamental a right as food and drink. If you cant find 5 minutes to read with a child, then don't have so many.

I have one child! We read with him loads. It's the every day I dispute, because as various posters keep saying there are days that other stuff is happening and insisting a tired child struggle to read for a few minutes is not going to foster a love of reading. Other stuff is important too.

Well if you are reading loads, wtf are you even going on about?

I am fairly sure I have posted I expect children to read so that we change books on a Monday, Wednesday and a Friday. If you cant manage that, you have issues.
And if you are managing that (and appear that you are and you feel it is important), then why the hell shouldn't I have the same high standards for the rest of my children?

TeacherBob, it's completely off topic, but you sound like completely different from my experience of teachers, I am very intrigued to ask what do you do with gifted children. Like the ones start yr1 with old NC level 3? (I know level don't exist anymore, but don't have any other comparison.

I have exactly that scenario atm, and I will admit it is tough.

The rules have changed now.
Instead of pushing children up through the levels as fast as possible, to hit targets etc and show the children are bright, we stay in the same level (so for year 1, the children stay in the year 1 scheme of work).

I absolutely love this. Before, children would be moved up before they were ready, it was like building on sand and as they get older, the work gets harder, but because all the basics aren't secure enough, it all falls apart.
Now we work on mastery, so the children need to master all the elements of the years curriculum.
For instance, whilst his friends are doing 22 + 7, he is doing 'John has 22 pencils and gets 7 more, how many does he have in total?' That no matter how a problem is presented, the child can solve it. He needs to fully understand everything completely. It's great.

You aren't supposed to move up past the year level but in the case of gifted and talented, if you can prove that the level is completely mastered, then the head teacher (or senco or someone) can authorise going to the next level.
In my case, I intend to spend till Christmas proving complete mastery and then move on to year 2 work if I can collect enough evidence and if it turns out to be the right thing for him (its a plan, plans change).

Maybe mrz could add more on it, it is not one of my strengths and I am learning as I go

"Instead of pushing children up through the levels as fast as possible, to hit targets etc and show the children are bright, we stay in the same level (so for year 1, the children stay in the year 1 scheme of work)."

Genuine question ...Why?

We had one scheme where one evening a week (same night each week) the amount the child read was recorded and the one who read most and class who read most got a prize of some sort. I don't think this was perfect though as it was a night both DDs had an activity until 8pm every week. Some kids were reading for hours that day and it got a bit ridiculous and unhealthy, IMO. They'd have been better off reading for 20 minutes then running around for a few hours instead.

Sorry that was rushed so I should clarify. I'm assuming we are still talking about reading?

We don't use book bands so there's no rushing through them or setting targets based on levels/bands/other measures.
We use decodable books for beginner readers matched to their level if phonic knowledge but once reading fluently there aren't "Y1 books" it "Y2 books" or "Y3 books" just books and they are allocated to match specific learning intentions.

Do you all use a benchmarking system ? We use one that's linked to an Assertive Mentoring programme .

Certainly not!

Benchmarking is linked to RR and multi cueing strategies.

The rules have changed now.

Yes, they have - and children must read a book closely matched to their level as early readers. Nowhere does it say you should keep Year 1 readers on the Year 1 reading curriculum though -- the 'closely matched' phrase means the opposite.

Thank you TeacheBob

No, mrz, I think TeacherBob is not only talking about reading, she/he is answering my question, which I specified "off topic". (Sorry for derail.)