1. The Reading Counts! program provides students with practice that develops essential fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and test-taking skills.

2. Reading Counts! Offers three major components: A collection of over 35,000 computerized quizzes that test student comprehension and that can be customized to help all children succeed A library of engaging leveled fiction and nonfiction books from over 400 publishers Management software that provides administrators and teachers with powerful tools to monitor and evaluate student independent reading, as well as data to guide and differentiate instruction

3. Teachers can customize instruction to meet student needs: Teachers are able to write their own quizzes. Reports track quiz results, goals reached, total words read per student, and other pertinent data that can be used to inform instruction. Quiz Manager helps teachers select titles to integrate the program into curricula in other subject areas. Book Expert allows teachers to match students to books they can read successfully with three different text leveling systems and a searchable database of hundreds of titles noted by topic areas, culture, award, series, and comprehension skill practice. Book Expert also provides teachers with word counts for each of these books.

4. Reward Reading Achievement! Acknowledge success for everyone to see. Post updates of your students’, groups’, classes’, or school’s point or book accumulation in a highly visible location. Update the point or book status on a weekly basis. Announce names of students/classes who achieved success over the Public Address system each week. Include their names in a Reading Counts! newsletter. Wall of Fame: Create a hallway display showing student names and award levels achieved. Award Ceremony: Hold school-wide assemblies to award reading achievement in different categories. Invite parents to attend.

5. Consider acknowledging below-average readers for different reading accomplishments, such as: reaching a reading goal, writing a quiz, reading from multiple genre or various topics books, demonstrating the mastery of reading skills in a written or oral response to a book, improving the most as a reader, acquiring new vocabulary words, etc.

6. Other Rewards & Ideas Book Clubs: Encourage students to form monthly book clubs to discuss the books they’ve read. Academy Awards: Students nominate their favorite books and authors. Hold a class vote and announce the winners at the ceremony. Groups combine efforts in a poster contest (poster theme is a book title). Reading Privileges: Give older students special privileges in recognition of their accomplishments. A popular one is cut to the front of the lunch-line pass. Extra credit: When students surpass reading goals, award extra credit, author a Reading Counts! quiz, or help struggling students prepare for a quiz. VIP Lunch: Award students or groups with lunch with the principal, teacher, library media specialist, or parents. Reading Counts! Bookshelf: Invite students to design a book cover for their favorite books. Require each cover to include the title, author, and the designer’s name.