Getting innovative with the types of Literacy Reinforcers your students earn will keep them engaged with the strategy all year long. Here are 5 ways to spice up your Literacy Reinforcers!

#1 Study Guide

Encourage students to build a study guide using their Literacy Reinforcers. This is a study tool that is digestible and easy to access by 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 reference them to study from (similar to flash cards!).

#2 Bookmarks

Another creative way to use Literacy Reinforcers is by creating a Bookmark. Simply take a Literacy Reinforcer, hole punch the top center, and tie a small string or ribbon on the end. Now, students can use their Literacy Reinforcers as a bookmark when reading other texts or books.

#3 Notebooks

Try 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.

#4 Puzzles

Still feeling a little puzzled about how to spice up Literacy Reinforcer? 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 a puzzle, and they can trade with other students to collect all the pieces they need to complete the puzzle.

#5 Wild Card

If you have minimal teacher-prep time, this idea is for you! One of our favorite ways to increase student engagement is with “Wild Cards”. Like all of our strategies, we want to follow the Gradual Release of Responsibility.

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 Wild Card, they get the job of creating their own content-related Literacy Reinforcer using the information and language from around the room, in books, etc. This is an opportunity for students to transition into application of content and knowledge. 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!

Try it Out!

Use these tips and tricks to keep Literacy Reinforcers fresh, fun, and exciting for your students!