A few years ago, my son, Ryan, then six, needed a bit of extra encouragement to practice his newly learned reading skills. To help him out, and to foster his three-year-old brother Kevin's love of books, I came up with a reading incentive program. I created a large paper Christmas tree to hang on the wall, and the boys made paper ornaments for it. For each chapter or small early reader book that Ryan read, he printed the name of the book on an ornament and taped the ornament to the tree. Kevin earned his ornaments by having his father or me read a book to him. We counted the ornaments each week, and whoever had the most got to put his own star at the top of the tree. After six weeks, the boys were very excited about their total of 110 ornaments on the tree. What an accomplishment for them!
--Sue S., San Diego, CA