Reading Reward Collector's Badges Toolkit

Inspired by phone apps which reward your achievements with visual interactive badges, this resource aims to be an incentive for children and parents to explore a wider range of reading materials at home. It includes an editable badge book with descriptions of the challenges that each child needs to complete to earn the 30 badges with a short example of a letter to parents. It also includes full sheets of all of the badges.

Each badge has a title and a short description about how to achieve it. For example the critic badge’s description says ‘Write a full book review in 3 paragraphs about a book that you have finished.’

The range of badges cover many objectives, from using a dictionary, following instructions, listening to a story being read , writing a letter to an author to writing a fact sheet about something they read on the internet. They also encourage children to try books of different genres. Since the descriptions are editable, you can change them as you see fit to meet the needs of your class. The badges also differ in difficulty and the amount of time that they require.

Suggestions for use:

1. Make a display with each child’s name with a space/ running track to display the badges they have earnt.
2. Print out the badge booklet for each child. Keep a copy in the children’s reading journals.
3. Introduce the badges and booklet to children and parents.
4. Print a sheet of each badge out and keep in a folder. Cut out individual badges for display or child’s reading journal as needed.
5. Allow time in each week for children to share which badge they have worked towards that week and hold a rewards ceremony to award reading badges. Some badges like the poet badge may require children to share a poem they have learnt.
6. Display work and badges in class!

I created this resource with the aim to let children choose which badges and how many they would like to complete. I would also provide a reward as an incentive to earn badges (e.g. 10 badges= 15 minutes ipad time)

I look forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions to how this resource can be improved and used in different ways. I hope you find it useful and you enjoy using it.