Our school has a Super Reader Program for elementary students.
Students receive rewards for how many books they read. Every student receives a sheet with lines (5 for kindergarten, 10 grade 1, 15 grade 2, etc.) with columns - date read, book title, author (grade 2 & 3 only) and parents initial.
Regardless of how many books read the child can only record 1 book per day. Each time form was filled it is to be given to teacher. The teacher then keeps track of how many books the child has read. From the classrooms I saw the names of every student were at the bottom of a poster and above that was a grid - with the # of books (in increments of 5) written on left and right hand sides. Then for each time a block was done (slip was handed in for 5 books) a sticker was placed there. There were milestones for which children received prizes - 10 books, 25 books, 50 books, etc. For my son's grade 1 class last year - the teacher told me that few children (5 of the 23 kids) went above 50 and only 2 went about 75 books.
The prizes were minor - stickers, pencils, erasers - all dollar store items or such. Our PAC (Parents Advisory Council) (same as PTO in the US) budgets $100 for every teacher for class room incentives and an extra $50 per classroom if the teacher participates in Super Reader.
I, personally, have a challenge with this program only because we don't always read books at home - we read backs of cereal boxes, recipes, newspapers, magazines, internet articles, etc. Most of which I try to turn into a Teachable Moment. For example, with cereal carton - he reads the box and then we discuss the nutritional information, the selling aspect of what he's just read (ie: consumerism and marketing), gimmicks (buy 300 boxes and get 1 toothbrush), etc. Even things such as instructions for a board game we're playing - those can be quite confusing even for adults. Anyways I'm babbling. Needless to say my son didn't get more than 50 books but his reading is at a higher grade level then he's currently in (not his math but that's a different story).
This year the school is revamping the Super Reader program so that all classes are consistent and that it includes all 8 grades (K's and grades 1-7) as Improving Literacy is one of our school goals. The main change we are making is changing it from # of books to # of minutes. The children still have to write down what they've read but it's okay if it is the newspaper or Instructions from Clue Game, etc.
Hope this helps. I also have ideas that our school's Literacy committee has collected if anyone is interested in those. My email is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Thanks for letting me go on and on and on and on [img]smile.gif[/img]