Sight Word Celebrations

 I do several sight Word Celebrations through the school year to encourage students to read sight words.

Read this post here to see how I assess sight words.

Once I see how slow or quickly my students are reading their words, I step up the encouragements. This is to keep things exciting and fun. I believe that hard work should be modeled, taught, and rewarded. I choose to do this by hosting Sight Word Celebrations.

My first party is in January or February, again it just depends on my students abilities.
The sight word party is Popcorn. I rarely allow my class to just "watch" a movie, but on this day they get to. We make popcorn, watch a movie, and take some time to off to celebrate our hard work.

Our next party is Ice Cream. We do this in March or April. We make ice cream sundaes and celebrate our hard work again.

The last party is the big one... PIZZA! We usually do this one the last week of school.

Okay... now that you know which parties I host, let me tell you how we decide who comes (we say who is invited.)I look at their past data collection (see this post to see how I gather sight word data) and see how fast or slow they are learning new words. THEN I sit with my student to set a new goal. Some students may need to go from 50 words to 75, while another may need to go from 3 words to 6. Some students I push harder, some I encourage to keep up with the pace they are currently on.I keep a paper with each students goal with me and (I send a quick letter home to parents as well)

The note goes home about 3-4 weeks before the party. As that students works on their words, I refer back to our agreement. I send reminders home about the party a week before as well. Once a student is invited to the party, I send a note home to let the moms and dads know.

Since each goal is a personal goal, each student does get invited. I have NEVER had a student NOT come... they all have worked VERY hard and earned their way to the party. This is hard for my parents to "get" at first, but once they talk with me about it and see how excited their students are to get to their goal... they are on board. The second and third party are much smoother for the students and esp the parents. Again... this is just a fun way to encourage hard work and good reading.

Here is the link for my FREE Fry Sight Word Booklet, just in case you need to grab it. 

How do you keep students motivated to read sight words?