Literacy Reinforcers
Love using Literacy Reinforcers, but need ideas to keep your students engaged? Literacy Reinforcers are an innovative & fun way to get literacy into the hands (and homes) of students. Here are some ways to get creative with different types of Literacy Reinforcers!
Study Guide
Try using the Literacy Reinforcers as a study tool for students. By hole-punching the corner of the Reinforcer, students can now place the ones they earn on a binder ring, and clip it onto their backpacks and belt loops, where they can easily access them to study from (similar to flash cards!).
Bookmark
Another creative way to use Literacy Reinforcer is by creating a Literacy Reinforcer Bookmark. Simply take your LR, hole punch the top center, and tie a small string or ribbon on the end. Now, students can use their LR as a bookmark when reading other texts.
DIY
Have some sketchy kids in class? We recommend using Literacy Reinforcer Booklets. All you need to do is take a Literacy Reinforcer, and staple a blank piece of paper behind it. Now your students can earn the booklets, and with the extra sheet of paper, they can add notes about their unit of study by sketching or writing. We find this to be a strategy our artistic students gravitate towards, as it is a place they sketch as well as write notes.
Puzzle
Still feeling a little puzzled about how to spice up Literacy Reinforcers for your students? Try creating puzzle pieces! Start with a content-related sketch or picture, add some relevant text (such as a fun fact, or vocabulary word), and cut it into puzzle pieces. Now, when students earn Literacy Reinforcers, they are earning pieces of the puzzle, and they can trade with other students to collect all the pieces they need to complete the puzzle.
Wild Card
If you have minimal teacher-prep time, this last idea is for you! One of our favorite ways to increase student engagement is with a Literacy Reinforcer called a “Wild Card”. It is our favorite because it is minimal prep work for the teacher. Like all of our strategies, we want to follow the Gradual Release of Responsibility process. A few weeks into your unit, start introducing Wild Cards into your mix of Literacy Reinforcers. A Wild Card is a colored piece of paper that is blank. Once students earn a blank Literacy Reinforcer (a Wild Card), they earn the job of creating their own content-related Literacy Reinforcer using the content from around the room, in books, etc. They will find a fact, cite their source, and add a sketch. At the end of the week, collect the student-generated Wild Cards, and make copies of them. Now, you have a whole new set of Literacy Reinforcers to use for the duration of your unit. And the best part- the students created them for you!
Check out more tips for Literacy Reinforcers here:
Author
Anisa Arain
Site Achievement DirectorShare this post
Related Articles
Nurturing Empathy through the Suzy Strategy (Social Emotional Learning)
The Suzy strategy is a wonderful time time to discuss social issues, opinions, or subjects as a whole class, in small groups, or with a partner. It is designed for student-student bonding, respect, & understanding.
Cultivate a Growth Mindset- The Power of "Yet"
A growth mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work. It's the idea that with effort, learning, and perseverance, we can improve and grow. In contrast, a fixed mindset sees abilities as innate traits – you either have them or you don't.
Increasing Language Production in the Classroom
Take a moment to think about your own classroom. How often are your students using high academic language in their reading, writing and speaking? Research shows that the first step to reading and writing academic language is producing it orally.
