Skip to main content

DO YOU REWARD READING?

 As a teacher, the fact that I had 24 pupils out of which only 4 could read gave me sleepless nights. I spent hours researching the best ways to get 9-12-year-olds to correctly read up a complete sentence. I have tried phonics, “D” Star alphabets, teaching sight words, and even using queen premiere but I wasn’t seeing a real effect on their reading.

Later on, I realized that I was the one doing all the pushing which made the motivation to read an external affair and consequently, a little beyond reach.

I even tried to tell them how important it was to read and the many doors it could open for them in the future, but somehow, it didn’t just register in their consciousness. This continued to be the case until I added something else to the mix-Reward! Kids love rewards, I promise you, those things you reward kids for are not only going to continue but are most likely to become a priority for them.

One Monday morning, I came to class and paired up my pupils into different groups, I paired the high fliers with the struggling readers, when I was done, I informed them of my plans to give the best group a reward by Friday. I told them that I expected everyone in each group to be able to read our comprehension passage for the week fluently by Friday-The best group was to win a special prize from me.

Pupils from Emmanuel Anglican Primary school 1

To say the least, my class was on fire!

I was surprised about the different strategies these kids came up with to ensure the struggling readers amongst them picked up so that they eventually win the prize.

Some kids didn’t even go out to play during break time, when I asked why they said it availed them more time to ensure their teammates could properly read the text. Others urged their struggling team members to copy out the text unto their note books so they could also read when they got home since their parents could not afford to buy the textbook for them.

I was blown away just seeing my kids come up with ideas on their own; I had never even thought about doing that considering that 80% of my pupils could not afford the recommended English textbook.

Friday was finally here, I brought out my gift items, placed them on the table and them assembled all the groups to make their presentation one after the other, I listened to them read and graded them as they presented. To my amazement, pupils who couldn’t even read words were reading full paragraphs without any help.

To be honest, a lot of them didn’t read the entire text but nobody read anything short of a paragraph and that made me so proud. Just as I promised, I rewarded the best group but I also took out time to publicly commend those who had pushed themselves to read-we all gave them the special love clap.

Now I do this every week and I have noticed tremendous improvements, there’s nothing more than getting kids to take responsibility for their own learning –it is just beautiful!

I have found that this also works for parents or teachers who have kids who can read but just won’t read-The same rules apply: Rewarding reading puts your child on his/her way to becoming an independent reader, if not an expert reader.

Kids love rewards! And it’s okay to use that to your advantage.

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HOW MY FATHER TAUGHT ME TO BE AN EDUCATOR

  HOW MY FATHER TAUGHT ME TO BE AN EDUCATOR Looking at my life right now, I cannot help but be reminded of my dad. Nnana was what we called him. He was a very quiet man, keeps to himself, didn’t have friends, at least none that we knew of. Right now I remember him telling us stories of how his journey started, at that point my siblings and I were not really interested in those stories seeing how we roll our eyes when he starts giving us one of the stories, we always got one of those anytime we did something wrong-that was one of his punishment strategies. I really don’t know if it’s me who is missing him or there’s just   a lot of things to learn from the life of my dad as it connects to my job as an educator. My father was never really predictable, except of course with his stories. We were not sure what he would do next and was never a fan of always using the cane. My mom was the typical Nigerian mom, everything was a weapon to massively destroy your bad behavior-the c...
10 comments
Read more

Teaching 9-10 Subjects per day: A blessing or a Curse.

The moment I started teaching my first lessons in my placement school, I knew from that moment that I was only going to be racing against time and the structures put in place to facilitate normal academic activities. Personally, I liked to access the situation of things with my learners before I go ahead to figure out what the best approach for a particular topic would be and since I was sure that most of my learners in primary 4 should be sent back to primary 1 I knew that there was a lot of work cut out for me. Before I start my class I try to research a topic online, I go on YouTube and try to find out very simple ways of teaching division to little kids. With this my kids are always surprised how simple Maths can be when I'm the one who is teaching it because the methods I use are at the level they understand and can relate to, this makes my learners feel like this school thing is not as hard as they thought. But the other side to it is the fact that my methods will usually tak...
1 comment
Read more

PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS TEACHING MULTIPLE SUBJECTS. YEH/NEH

If you are a primary school teacher and you teach more than one subject raise your hand.  Do you have subjects you know you have to do more research on before you feel confident teaching them? Do you sometimes feel the need to recheck and double-check things in one or more subjects compared to others? Are there subjects you have outright joy and confidence teaching compared to others? Are there times you wish you just stick to some of these subjects instead of having to pack up everything? To be honest, I understand that most school facilities cannot afford to pay individual teachers to handle each subject, I understand that they expect primary school teachers to know and understand the basic subjects well enough to teach them at preliminary levels, BUT! Are we experimenting with the next generation of Nigerians or are we giving them the best that there is? Our pupils deserve to have the best from every teacher and a teacher can only be his best self if he is teaching what he feels...
Post a Comment
Read more