Elementary School Library Question?

Question

what kind of activities can I use to get the students interested in reading. maybe some kind of reward system? I may be using Accelerated Reader with the students and I'm curious as to how I can get the students involved?

Answer 1

Well at my school the librarian gives the students in lower level grades (kinder thru 3rd) a red tote and the students are supposed to get five books at a time and put them in the bag to take home.  They are to read the books to their parents at home and their parents are to fill out a sheet stating that the child did indeed read the book to/with them (kind of like a reading log).  The students are to bring the red bag with books and the completed log back to be able to get five new books.  The students are then rewarded based on how many books they were able to read in a term.  Everyone gets some sort of a reward as long as they read at least one book but those who read more got a slightly bigger reward.  The kids were pretty excited about it and it worked fairly well.  I think the kids really enjoyed the special red bag that was only for library books.  It had little illustrations of books on them and the kids were able to decorate it and write their names on it.

Answer 2

As a school librarian myself, the main thing to get the kids interested is read to them!  Seriously!  When students are being read to, some of them are interested enough to want to check the same book out and either read it with you, or read it on their own.

also, do lots and lots of booktalks. This is kinda like a movie trailer -- give the basic plot, and some cool details, but make them read it to find out what happens. If you try and include lots of different genres, authors, and levels, you will catch the interest of almost all your kiddos.

I'm not the best book-talk person, but I use the children's literature sites on teh web. check out carolhurst.com, she has lots of booktalks already that you can use in your class.

Another idea is to incorporate your book reports into your classroom in fun ways. One idea I used to use when I taught was the "goodie Bag book report".  A student had to use a grocery sack and include 10 various items that could help explain parts of his book.  Then, for his oral book report, he would use his items to show the class, and explain their significance to his book.  

For example, if I am doing my report on Charlotte's Web, I might have these items in my sack:  rubber spider, stuffed pig, picture of a rat; a blue ribbon, etc. Hope that makes sense. It really gives the students a way to be creative, without forcing them to be artistic.  Often, a lot of these "items" are interesting enough to other students to encourage them to read these same books. We had lots of duplicate books being read, and different items being included each time.

Answer 3

I must say I love Accelerated Reading, If you have it, it can be wonderful. It made my last three years of teaching fantastic. We also had Accelerated Math which is equally fantastic.

Finally, a way to keep track and to monitor children's free reading. AR has built in rewards and monitoring programs you can use. I did my own thing. I taught third grade and had 20 students. (California) I made a design out of a 9x12 sheet of construction paper. Every time they read a book and passed a test I put a construction paper star on their individual poster. We had die cuts which made this easy. For .5 books they got a small star, also for one point books. For 2 point books and higher they got a large star. I put the number of the AR test on the star. Oh, and yes they had to pass the test to get their star. I pushed the kids hard that lagged behind encouraging the parents to have them read an AR book for home reading. I required 2 points a week and if they got 4 points they received extra privileges.

I also worked with the fourth and fifth grade teachers. They had 30+ children so they didn't have time to do the stars. They kept a BB of progress for their kids as outlined in AR. I also encouraged them to have a minimum of 2 points a week and extra privileges for 4 points. I also kept a thermomether chart in the cafeteria for all the 4th and 5th grade classes. The class had a party when they reached 2000 points. This worked well for the teachers who pushed the program, and what is more important then teaching children to read and enjoy books.

This from a retired teacher who rarely finds time to read just for enjoyment. I'd rather do something like this if I have free time. I hope you love AR as much as I did.