Kindergarten Reading Apple at Amelia Earhart

The Amelia Earhart Elementary Kindergarten team is hard at work. It’s a teacher’s job to lay a foundation for young students that will affect their whole lives, and they have a new trick up their sleeve. 

A couple of years ago, the kindergarten team set out to solve a persistent problem in their classrooms. Kindergarteners are at a crucial stage of a lifelong reading journey. Positive experiences can turn apprehension and fear into joy and passion. 

The issue? The standard assigned homework—15 minutes of reading a day—frustrated parents and left students feeling like reading was a chore. As is standard, forms were sent home for the parents to fill out with their children. The kindergarten team began to see these forms as cumbersome and ineffective. Parents often forget to fill them out. They would also lose track of the specifics of their reading sessions and need to fudge the numbers. Many parents even expressed light dread at the reading sessions. 

The team put their minds together and engineered the Apple Reading system. 

First and foremost, the reading forms were discarded. Instead, parents would account for family reading time through a more approachable method: text messages. Once a week, parents text the teacher if had done their fifteen minutes of reading with their children. The next day, the teachers would give the students, whose parents reported, a simple sticker to place on a large apple outside in the halls. Finally, once stickers covered the apple, each kindergarten class would be rewarded with a party. 

As the new system was implemented, results came immediately. 

The amount of reported reading began to rise. Many students who had been spotty about homework became more regular. Parents looked forward to reading time more consistently now that the paperwork had been removed. The link between parents and teacher became stronger, as they directly communicated regularly. 

Most importantly, each student now looked forward to their reading homework. The experience became more enjoyable as a whole and it’s hard to underestimate the power a prize sticker has on a young learner.

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