Reading_Incentives

=Reading Incentives at California Avenue School= =by Ellen McCann=



The library media specialists at California Avenue School have been busy promoting reading over the school vacation breaks. Our goal was to motivate hundreds of students to keep reading books over the vacations and to keep them reading every day.

Snowflakes were falling at December break when hundreds of students read at least one book and wrote a short summary of their book selections. Penguins were waddling in over February break when readers wrote why the book they read was "cool". Students read a book over April break and several hundred students completed a book summary, and rated their books on a scale of 1 to 10.

The number of students participating in this reading incentive program increased dramatically throughout the school year from the initial incentive in December. All students who returned a summary received a prize of their choice from our prize box. The snowflakes, penguins and ducks decorated our halls with fantastic book choices and vivid artwork.

We also stress to the students the importance of joining the winter and summer reading programs at the Public Library. Several announcements were made in library classes about the program schedules and events. We are thrilled that we were able to encourage our students to read thousands of books over their school vacations.