Saturday, April 13, 2013

READ! READ! READ!

For the last few years, Crystal and I have had our little first graders in a competition against each other in reading.  At our school we do the Accelerated Reading Program (students read books on his/her level, take a test on the computer over it, and earn points).  The first graders usually don't start it until December or a little later since that is when they really start becoming more independent on their reading.  

So, we decided that the last nine weeks of school we would see which class could earn the most points.  We have told the kids that if both classes can earn 1,000 points together, then we would all have a little party at the end of the year.  Of course, Crystal and I are both competitive and we both do everything that we can to get the kiddos wanting to read and win LOL!  Crystal accuses me of cheating all the time :-) (at least she accuses me of it when we are in the lead :-)) 

Joking aside, it is a fun and friendly little competition and the kids really get into it!  They absolutely love it and are reading their books whenever they have time at school and taking them home in the evening to read them. 

At our school, in the morning the k-1 group will have days that they go to the library in the morning before school starts.  They get to watch an educational video.  The upper grades will be in the hallway reading his/her AR book.  Our kids have gotten so excited and want to read that they have asked to be able to go out in the hall and read instead of watching the video.  Of course, we let them! 

Crystal and I graph everyday where the classes are on the points.  The graph is hanging in the hallway outside our rooms.  So, the kids are always excited to get to the rooms to check to see who has the lead.  Our graph is below:

 
 
I was glad that when I took this picture, my class was in the lead HA!!  HA!!  Although, I will say that the two days before Crystal's class had the lead.  :-)  The kids are doing a great job with it and have earned a lot of points so far.  We are pretty sure that we will make the 1,000 points and will be able to celebrate together! 
 
We are really glad that the kids are having so much fun with it (along with their teachers :-)) and that they are reading a lot! 
 
Hope all of you have a wonderful weekend!  Kristi



2 comments:

  1. Kristi, I'd love to hear more about how your kids take the test on the computer. Does the computer read them the test? Or do they read the questions themselves? Is it something that teachers can purchase?

    I'm your latest follower, and I've just put up some freebies about amusement parks and spring on my blog if you'd like to come over and pick them up.

    Sharon Dudley, NBCT
    Teaching with Sight

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  2. Hi, so glad you joined us-I went to your blog and we are now following you as well. I love your amusement park and spring freebies-thanks so much! Can't wait to read more of you blogs!

    As far as the tests on the computer, the students actually read the questions themselves. We give them a list of words that are commonly used on the tests and they have to be able to read those words before they can start AR.

    This is a program that was purchased for the district, not sure if it can just be purchased by a teacher or not. Crystal and I were talking about it and thought that if we didn't have the AR program, we could still do a competition at the end of the year. We would probably see who could read the most books and keep track of how many books they read.

    Thanks again for the freebies and we are excited to be a new member of your blog! :-) Have a good week! Kristi

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