We do AR county wide but the middle school has a DEAR session. Drop Everything And Read is scheduled at a certian time of day. The classroom with the most participants gets a pig or some kind of stuffed animal to leave in the classroom until the next person wins it. My neice is not thrilled with the program but she is 14 and hard to please. The teachers love it.

I wanted to the Pizza Hut program in addition to AR when I was pres. The principal shot it down (I won as many as I lost so I can't complain). There are rewards for each step. It goes from 5-25 in 5pt intervals, I think. My kids never get their prizes. At the end of the year the kids with the most points receive a trophy. Sometimes the classes have a race to see who has the most points. An extra recess is usually the prize. I really like the Accelerated Reader Program (even if I can't spell it). My husband is not to big on the idea. Some teachers go over board and some do not put so much emphasis on it. If it had been around when I was in school, I may have actually read a book.

The other elementary school takes their kids to lunch at a local resort for kids that reach several points.

Our school's Reading Incentive Program begins the first day in February and ends the Friday following Dr. Seuss' birthday/Read Across America Day. Each child needs to read a certain amount of minutes each week. They are given slips of paper they write in the date and the amount of minutes they read and they sign it, their parent signs it and they turn it into their teacher at the end of the week. Two parent volunteers go through the slips. Those kids who have read the # of minutes they're supposed are given a prize. We had donations from Cold Stone Creamery, McDonald's, Hollywood Video gift certificates, 7-11 Slurpees and ordered small prizes from Oriental Trading like bookmarks. The theme was Reading Lights the Way with a picture of a lighthouse and all the slips of paper were tacked up on the bulletin board for all the kids to see - and their parents could see when they came in to the school. It is the fourth or fifth year our school has done this program and the feedback we got from teachers is that the kids are motivated at the beginning of the year to read. After the holidays that motivation begins to wain. The Reading Incentive Program gets them kickstarted again and motivates them to read without a lot of begging/pleading - they want to do it for the prize.

I'm trying to put something like that together too. I've got some rough ideas, but need to present it to the rest of the board and see if they like it. So far...

Give every child a book from the profits at our fall book fair(borrowed this idea from another school on this forum-thanks!).

Have reading events throughout the year. Serve supper, play games....

Get the grownups involved-develop some kind of incentive program for the parents. A big influence on my love of reading was the fact that both my parents were avid readers(setting that example for their kids).

I'm excited about getting it developed because I'd so like to see our parent group do something more than raise funds and buy stuff and all the usual volunteer things.

Will share more as it develops!

Pizza Hut has a program called "Book It" that gives a give certificate for a personal pan pizza. The reading teachers at school set a goal for each month and the parent has to sign off that the child completed the required reading.

During the summer, your local public library should run a program and also Barnes and Nobles has a summer reading program.

There was an article in a recent copy of PTO Today that outlined one school's million minute reading program. I don't have the copy with me but you might be able to find it in the archives.

Does anyone have any great ideas for a reading program for K-5? We would like to possibly do an all year incentive program. Please let me know of any ideas.