I have a T shirt company, and at my daughters school we produced customized shirts as top prizes for the reading encouragement program. The shirts were purchased by the PTA. On the front we designed a baseball team logo: “Benson Hill Reading All Stars†and on the back we put the student’s last name and grade. This reward was so well recieved that the number of top readers increased by three times from the previous year.
[This message has been edited by Rockne (edited 11-17-2000).]
Our elementary school sponsors a PARP play where alot of teachers will put on a performace act for the entire school that establishes the theme for the month. Last year was the millenium train where each teacher dressed in different decade garb. It was also performed at night for the parents to attend with their children. Each child receives certificates that go along with the theme. They must read at least 15 minutes each night to complete the certificate. The parent will sign their slip and they return it to their teacher. I remember one year where the theme was "Catch the Reading Bug" and the certificates were leaves. The teachers decorated the outside of their classrooms to look like rainforest trees(using the leaf cert.'s) Student Council gives prizes for classes with 100% participation and top readers etc. At the end of the month, the teachers do another play that answers the problem presented at the first one. Our PTO sells t-shirts that have PARP and the year and something with the theme on it, to go along with the students hard work. It is alot of fun for the whole family!!
At our school last year we set a goal of achieving a "Million Minutes of Reading". Every student in the school was a participant and each class kept a record of how much reading was done during class. Individual students also had to tally their minutes of reading at home and include that in the totals. To document our totals each week, we constructed a "bookworm" made of construction paper. Every week he got longer and longer spreading throughout the halls of the school! It was alot of fun. When the million minutes was achieved, our principal shaved half of his beard during a class assembly--with quite a flourish--barber and all. Dairy Queen supplied us with an ice cream treat for each student and that was it. It was a great school spirit event plus it encouraged the students to read.
At our school the library teacher coordinates a program called "Book It". Children in grades K-2 must read 200 minutes and grades 3-5 must read 300 minutes each month from October to March. By the end of the program each child should have read 25 books. The library teacher sends a calendar home each month where the title of the book and number of minutes read each day are noted. Parent/Guardian must sign the calendar before submitting in order for it to be valid. In order to motivate students to increase the amount of time they spend reading independently, Pizza Hut has agreed to give each child who participates a coupon for a free personal pan pizza. And the class that has the most participation gets an ice cream or pizza party. Parents are encouraged to read with their children. It's a great way to spend quality time together!
Parents as Reading Partners (PARP) is where the kids keep a log of how much they read in a week by minutes. They can either read alone of with someone else. If they reach a certain number of minutes at the end of the week they get a prize.
One of our officers mentioned February, that must be why, because it's Nat'l Read A Book Month.
What is a Parents as Reading Partners program? Is this something done at home or in the school. Our Principal is VERY BIG on getting the kids to read just thought this sounded interesting.
Also I believe in February it is National Read a Book day. We sent home a flyer to all students and if they returned the slip the next day with a parent/guardian signature and the title of the book we gave them a prize. Kids were excited and maybe, JUST maybe the kids actually read!
Thanks for any info you can give!
