AR Points

I don't know about your school, but we reward students for reaching AR goals. Each semester, the students who make their points get a to participate in a fun activity. The first nine weeks, we had extra PE. Last nine weeks the kids worked for a free skating trip at a local skating rink, and this grading period students who reach their point goal will get to go bowling FOR FREE! I know that many people are against using Accelerated Reader, and I am too when the points count as grades. Some kids don't like reading, and it's not fair to judge them based on what they want to do outside of schoolwork. However, when AR is used as an incentive, I am all for it. Some students may be lovers of the written word, they just don't know it yet.

To get my students motivated, and to comply with school rules, I used STAR testing to find the reading levels of each student, and then made cards for them to take to the library.

You could print these off the computer and make them cute, but since I have 6th grade, I just gave them something they could use as a bookmark. If you teach younger students, make a smaller card to hang around their neck with a piece of yarn. 

Next, I printed off a series of AR Points Leaders charts to hang on my bulletin board. Every month I reward the student who has the highest points with a candy bag, antibacterial hand gel from B&BW, hot chocolate from my Keurig, etc. Yes, I spent some money, but I want these kids to be excited to read! This just so happens to be the chart from this month, but I have them made for all the months of the year. You can download them for free at my Teacher's Notebook store.

Finally, I tally everyone's points for the entire grading period on a large sheet of graph paper from Quill. (Buy the store brand...it's cheaper!) If you have a lot of kids you might have to give each student one line and divide each box into one point increments. Since I only have 17 students, I gave each one two lines and wrote down half-point increments. If the student reaches all the way to the end, which is 12.5 points, they go to their second line and start coloring in until they reach the end of that row. If they have two full rows, that means they have 25 AR points. As our goal increases, I will have to go to one point increments, but this works for now. I used my Cricut to make the pretty sign and birds. I think things work better when they are cheerful!

Now, if you don't have any clue about Accelerated Reader, or how to make a chart, leave a comment. You can do so much to get your kids motivated to read!