Reading-Rewards.com Blog

Reading Rewards Badges Are Here!

Do your kids love to collect things? If they’re anything like mine, they’re badgering you at the first sign of a potential new collection: Pokemon cards, Chaotic cards, Beyblades, SillyBandz (shudder), you name it. What do they do with them? Lose them everywhere, leave them in piles all around the house, fight over unfair trades… Ok, so maybe that’s just my kids. As far as I can tell, most of the time it’s simply a race to see who can collect the most, the fastest. Add notions of ‘rare’, ‘super rare’ and (gasp!) ‘ultra rare’, and you turn it into an absolutely must-have collection. I’ll never forget the look on a poor store manager’s face last year when those dreaded Silly Bandz were all the craze: she simply could not keep up with the waves of kids coming in, raiding her displays, literally going berserk if a new pack came in. For colored elastic bands!!

This got me thinking… What if we rewarded kids (Reading Rewards kids, that is!) with a card of some sort, every time they reached a reading milestone? Show them all the cards they can collect if they keep reading. Make some more desirable than others. Make some …. (gasp!) ULTRA rare! I can see the reading frenzy starting already!

Introducing RR badges, the latest must-have collection for your RR kids! Only this time, instead of shelling out your hard-earned cash to add to their collection, your kids will just have to keep reading and logging their minutes on Reading-Rewards.com!

Kids […]

By admin|September 9th, 2011|Reading Rewards|0 Comments

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.

From the ‘Groups’ tab, click on the ‘Create a New Group’ button.
Click on ‘Next’
You will get a notification that your group has been created, and your group will appear in your list.
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!
To create the student accounts yourself, click on the ‘Add Student to Group’ button. That will open up the following form:
Fill in the required information, and then click on ‘Save this student’ or ‘Save & Add Another Student’
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.
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 admin|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.

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!
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.
Click on ‘Log Reading Time’ in your Reading Log section:
That will take you to the Reading Log Detail screen below
If you are adding a new book, the following screen will open up:
Once you have clicked on the book title, you will be taken to the following screen. Click on ‘Add to my Library’.
This will take you back to the Reading Log Detail screen:

By admin|August 24th, 2011|Reading Rewards, Reluctant readers|3 Comments

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 […]

By admin|August 16th, 2011|Literacy activities|0 Comments

How to pick the best books for your kids: 10 top tips!

Secret to picking best books for kids

I’m going to let you in on a secret. And it’s a biggie. Getting kids to read is simple, really. Astonishingly so, in fact. And I am going to share it with you, now.

Ready? You have to pick the right books.

Books they’ll enjoy. Books at their reading level. Books that cater to their interests, not yours.

I know that’s hard to do! How many times have I caught myself saying: You’ll LOVE this book, it was my favorite when I was your age! Only to have them gawk at the cover or title, read the summary and say ‘Puulllease, mom’. Ok, so maybe some of Judy Blumes titles aren’t ideal for my two tween boys…

So how does one help a possibly reluctant reader pick a book he or she won’t want to put down? Here are my top tried and tested, sure-fire ways to get your kids reading:

Reading-Rewards.com (Book Recommendations tab) Well, you had to know I’d tell you to check out Reading Rewards, right? But I bet you didn’t know that beyond being a really cool online reading log and earning rewards, there’s a Book Recommendations tab that’s full of great reading suggestions. Here’s what you’ll find:
- Most Popular Books on Reading Rewards, as logged by our almost 5,000 users. Click through to read member reviews!
- Books members liked: This tab allows you to make selections by age and gender, and see what members like you have enjoyed. A random selection, but you may find some great […]

By admin|July 4th, 2011|Book recommendations, Reading Rewards, Reluctant readers|8 Comments

Featured User Series: Meet Marco!

In this fourth post in our Featured User Series, I’d like to introduce you to 10 1/2 year old Marco! Marco joined Reading-Rewards with his class in September 2010, and has logged just under 109 hours of reading time. That puts him at the Reading-Rewards Jellyfish level. Woohoo, that’s a lot of reading, Marco, well done!

Marco’s class, from Montreal’s St-Paul Elementary School, has logged a total of 105,268 reading minutes since September. Good job, you guys!

I contacted Marco to ask him a few questions:

Do you have an all-time favorite book? What sort of book do you generally enjoy?

Marco: My all-time favorite book would probably be Diary Of A Wimpy Kid 5: The Ugly truth. Not just because it’s funny and all, because I love the style they write it, like a diary. I think they put just the right amount of text on each page. Book Series I really enjoy are Big Nate and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I enjoy a very funny (not too long, unless the book is amazing)book.

Where is your favorite place to read? When you do usually read?

Marco: I like to read in class, the first 10 minutes or so, my teacher gives us time to read or write. Occasionaly, I choose reading. Sometimes even whem i’m watching some boring show, I would definately pull out a book and read. I usually read at my house, in many different ways.

Do you enjoy using the Reading Rewards website? What do you like about it? Could you tell us what would make it better?

Marco: I love using the Reading Rewards website because I think […]

By admin|June 2nd, 2011|Reading Rewards, Reviews|0 Comments

Featured User Series: Meet Marissa!

I am so excited to introduce you to Marissa, my very first Reading-Rewards.com member who was in no way related to me! I still remember the email notification I received letting me know I had had my first RR registration. Let me just tell you, my family certainly remembers…

Nearly 18 months and over 4,000 users later, Marissa has come out as one of my ‘best read’ members, with 279 books read, and 53 reviews. Marissa is not even 9 years old yet!!! I’m thrilled to see that she continues to use the site for her reading log.

I contacted Marissa to ask her a few questions:

Do you have an all-time favorite book? What sort of book do you generally enjoy?

Marissa: I don’t have an all-time favorite book. I like adventure books and stories about girls.

Where is your favorite place to read? When you do usually read?

Marissa: I like to read in my bedroom. I usually read before I go to bed.

Do you enjoy using the Reading Rewards website? What do you like about it? Could you tell us what would make it better?

Marissa: Yes I love the Reading Rewards website! I like it because you earn time to play games and reward miles for prizes. I also like that I can track all the books I have read and print them out to keep track of them. Thank you for such a great reading tool!

You’re welcome Marissa! You have no idea how much it means to me that you continue to use the site, and more importantly, that you still enjoy it!

Here is a list of books Marissa has reviewed, pulled directly from her Reading-Rewards.com profile. Impressive, I am sure you’ll agree!

By admin|May 27th, 2011|Reading Rewards, Uncategorized|2 Comments

How to run a great Summer Reading Program

How far would you go to get kids reading over the summer?

Mrs. Stoudenmire, a principal at Deerfield Windsor Lower School, in Georgia, has pledged to either kiss a pig, be in a human sundae or get dunked in a dunking booth if students read at least 250,000 minutes over the course of the summer.

Kathy Baker, Directory of Media Centers at Deerfield Windsor, recently found out about the Reading Rewards website, and set up a group for her 300+ students to use to help keep track of their summer reading. Between May 26 and August 11, kids will log their daily reading minutes using the online reading log, and be able to share book reviews and keep track of what (and how much!) everybody is reading over the summer. Weekly mini games on the site add a little competitive incentive: the more they read, the better their chances of winning!

Kathy has this to say about the program:

“This is our first summer reading program where we have a goal and we are keeping up with the minutes the students are reading. We were so excited to find a way that the students could easily log their reading minutes online as they work towards our goal of 250,000 minutes over the summer. (This would have been a lot to add up if they had kept paper logs!) We love that the students will be able to share what they are reading with other students. What a great way for the kids to keep up with their classmates over the summer while getting them fired up about reading!”

Deerfield Windsor School is just one of many […]

By admin|May 19th, 2011|Reading Rewards, Uncategorized|1 Comment

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