Monthly Archives: August 2011

How to set up a group on Reading Rewards

Once you have signed up for one of our accounts from the Reading Rewards home page, your first step as teacher or librarian will be to set up your group.

  1. From the ‘Groups’ tab, click on the ‘Create a New Group’ button.
    Create a Reading Rewards Group
  2. Click on ‘Next’
  3. You will get a notification that your group has been created, and your group will appear in your list.
  4. You can now either create student accounts yourself, or get your students to register themselves from the home page of the website. Students will need to provide an email address (either their own or a parent’s) if they register on their own. Be sure to tell them your group name, we will ask them for it upon registration!
  5. To create the student accounts yourself, click on the ‘Add Student to Group’ button. That will open up the following form:
  6. Fill in the required information, and then click on ‘Save this student’ or ‘Save & Add Another Student’
  7. When you have created your student accounts, you can hand out user names and passwords to your students, and get them started! Make sure they view our first tutorial, How To Log Reading Time.
  8. Once your group is up and running, here are a few things you will be able to do using the buttons on your group page:
  • Follow your group’s progress from the ‘Target’ tab!
  • See a nice dashboard of all your group members, what they’re currently […]
By |August 25th, 2011|Reading Rewards|1 Comment

How to log reading time on Reading Rewards

It’s the start of a brand new school year, and we thought we’d put together a few posts with some detailed instructions for all our new users! We’re very excited to welcome you on board our community of young readers.

In this first tutorial, we’d like to show you how to log your reading time.

  1. Sign in to Reading Rewards by clicking on the ‘Login’ button from the welcome page. Don’t have an account yet? Make sure you use the sign-up button, first. It’s free!
  2. This will take you automatically to your ‘My Reading’ page. This page is divided into in 4 main sections:
    • My Library shows you all the books you have read or are reading.
    • My Wishlist contains your book wish list.
    • My Profile shows you your summary statistics and reading level
    • Log Reading Time, which shows you your reading log history.
  3. Click on ‘Log Reading Time’ in your Reading Log section:
    Log Reading Time
  4. That will take you to the Reading Log Detail screen below
    reading log details
  5. If you are adding a new book, the following screen will open up:
  6. Once you have clicked on the book title, you will be taken to the following screen. Click on ‘Add to my Library’.
    Add book to reading log
  7. This will take you back to the Reading Log Detail screen:”reading

Reading the sky…

I’ve been a little quiet over the last few weeks. Certain circumstances have meant that both my husband and I have been able to take extended time off with our 3 kids this summer, so we have been quite busy…. relaxing!

Our friends recently introduced us to a fantastic activity I just had to share with you. Stargazing with iPhones! I have always been fascinated by the night sky, but have sadly never been able to identify constellations beyond the Big Dipper.

A-ha! I am a stargazing ignoramus no more! Introducing SkyView – Explore the Universe, an iPhone app that can help teach kids about constellations.

I downloaded the free version. The full version has the benefit of including satellites and moons, too.

Here’s a pic of kids spread out on the beach, waiting for night to fall. As soon as the first stars began to appear, and to the sound of my daughter reciting ‘Star Light, Star Bright’, the kids started pointing their devices at the sky and excitedly began to call out the names of the different constellations as they identified them. Amazing!

Just aim and tap the screen to identify hundreds of stars, with the names of the different constellations and their meanings right at your fingertips. Graphics are enhanced with Augmented Reality.

A friend of mine uses StarWalk and Planets, both of which seem to do pretty much the same things. She says that she has rule that the kids each must identify 1 new constellation every time they go to their country place. At the risk of being called a […]