If you’re a Read Live user, we hope you’re taking advantage of One Minute Reader Live access this summer to accelerate your students’ gains and ensure they don’t lose the progress they’ve made this year. (If you're not a Read Live user now, you can be for FREE with our 60-day free trial!) One Minute Reader Live is completely independent and ideally suited for summer learning. Teachers typically have just one concern: How can we trust that the students will put in the time and effort on their own? Rest assured, One Minute Reader Live is inherently rewarding, and kids love it! Beyond this, consider boosting their motivation by implementing a fun incentive program.

Claire Hayes, our educational consultant and teacher trainer, has some great recommendations for an One Minute Reader Live incentive program. One Minute Reader Live tracks students’ total points per story. Claire recommends rewarding students—individually, as a class, or both—based on the number of points they earn for the summer.

Setting Goals

According to Claire, students should aim to get between 4,000 and 5,000 points per story. The majority of points per story are earned on the quiz, because comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. A student earning 4,000 to 5,000 points per story is performing well on the quiz and understanding the material. When you explain this point goal for your students, be sure to remind them of the importance of comprehension. The purpose of learning to read well is to be able to understand the material.

Claire also recommends that students read an average of three stories per week. This ensures students are spending adequate time in the program, but it will not be an overwhelming amount of time during their summer break.

If students complete an average of three stories per week and earn between 4,000 and 5,000 points per story, each student could have a goal of earning 100,000 points for the summer. Teachers may need to modify this point total up or down based on their students’ individual situations.

Offering Rewards:

For your incentive program, you can offer a reward to any student who meets this goal. This reward can be anything you choose—a certificate, a sticker, a treat, special recognition amongst classmates, or whatever you think will be the best incentive. Consider incorporating bonus points, and bonus rewards, for students who exceed the 100,000 points.

To increase the fun even more, Claire recommends a class goal. Multiply the number of students working in One Minute Reader Live by 100,000 to get the class goal. If the class achieves that goal, the entire class gets a reward.

This type of incentive program will give your students something to strive for this summer. It’s inherently motivating to improve in reading skills, but we’ve worked with students long enough to know that they also really, really love earning points! (Don’t we all?)

We’re eager to hear about your students’ experience in One Minute Reader Live this summer. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions or additional ideas.