It's interesting to learn about how this works in a classroom and about the research on it. I use a version of this ("The Point Game" ) in my small group or 1-1 reading interventions. The students compete (as a group) or individually against me for points. They earn points for the target behaviors and I earn points when they show the opposite of the target behavior (e.g. doodling on their dry erase boards or calling out a word that another students is in the process of working to painstakingly decode). You can't lose a point. If they win, we play game at the end of the session (basically more reading practice, but in a game format). It's simple, but surprisingly motivating. There are some pitfalls, but they can be managed. Sometimes I have kids who really want to give me points if I don't have many. They say they feel bad that I'm losing. I just tell them that I need to my earn my points fair and square and that usually works!
Love that! I do something similar where I give every team a point if I do something counterproductive to our target behavior like respond to a call out.
And it’s been studied in small groups, too.
As a resource room teacher, I also played where each group I saw was a team and played against my other groups. A 3rd grade group would come in at 11:00 and see on the board what type of score the 4th graders had gotten at 8:00, etc.
It's interesting to learn about how this works in a classroom and about the research on it. I use a version of this ("The Point Game" ) in my small group or 1-1 reading interventions. The students compete (as a group) or individually against me for points. They earn points for the target behaviors and I earn points when they show the opposite of the target behavior (e.g. doodling on their dry erase boards or calling out a word that another students is in the process of working to painstakingly decode). You can't lose a point. If they win, we play game at the end of the session (basically more reading practice, but in a game format). It's simple, but surprisingly motivating. There are some pitfalls, but they can be managed. Sometimes I have kids who really want to give me points if I don't have many. They say they feel bad that I'm losing. I just tell them that I need to my earn my points fair and square and that usually works!
Love that! I do something similar where I give every team a point if I do something counterproductive to our target behavior like respond to a call out.
And it’s been studied in small groups, too.
As a resource room teacher, I also played where each group I saw was a team and played against my other groups. A 3rd grade group would come in at 11:00 and see on the board what type of score the 4th graders had gotten at 8:00, etc.
That’s a great idea. I should try that! Some of my groups come in asking about what score the previous group got.