Have you considered the Usborne Books REACH FOR THE STARS program?? 110% is returned to the school/organization. Kids get pledges for reading a number of minutes or for each book and when they collect, they spend 50% to buy new USBORNE books and the organization gets 60% in books for the school or cash option. It's a wonderful program. Check out the books at www.usbornebooks.ws
While we don't do this for the whole year you could. We do something similar to the above post.. the children have a goal together of 750 books (we keep track with a large poster with a thermometer pictured.."reading program heats up") if they reach the 750 the class gets an ice cream party.. if they reach 950 they get a pizza party with ice cream. Every ten books they get to pick a small prize from the prize box. The prize box is basically 5&dime type trinkets or Happy Meal prizes donated by parents. I am amazed at what it does for the kids. This is a first grade class.. my son has already read 20 books (60 page books) and we're just 3 weeks in..he even came out of school reading a book and is choosing to read over TV - gameboy. It's great!!
PS> Dunkin Donuts also will donate to reading programs like this..
Our PTO does the Pizza Hut's "Book It" Program. Our PTO sends home a list for every month. The student reads 5 books during the month and records the Name of Book and Author of the book. Parents are required to sign the paper also. Then the student receives a Free Pizza Award certificate(good for a free Personal Pan Pizza)The teacher fills this part out. They also get a badge to wear and every time they redeem their coupon, they get a sticker on the badge/button........It goes over well in our school.......hope it works for you too. Just contact any local Pizza Hut for details....
We are trying to start a Reading program for next year that will last the whole year. Does anyone do anything like this or have any ideas? We want to do it through the PTO and not require the teachers to do a lot of work.