Motivation

My son has just recently started reading. He loves it when I read to him but getting him to read now that's another story. I was helping my kids write a simple story and when it was finished he wanted me to turn it into a movie so he wouldn't have to do any work. That's my boy!! So how do you motivate kids to do something?

I'm not a huge fan of giving treats every time you do something you should have done in the first place. My kids don't get rewarded for cleaning their room everyday or for helping around the house. We all work together to get the jobs done. That doesn't mean that rewards aren't used. They just don't get it every time. They get them randomly and if they go the extra mile.

I have recently started teaching 2 of my kids how to write their letters. This can be a frustrating process. I want to reward them for doing their best so here's what I came up with. I used some magic markers that I bought a long time ago. Honestly I was surprised that they still worked. Here's the new version. I used the white side to color on the left side of the paper. I just chose random lines.

 It dries clear so no one knows what has been colored. When they do their best at whatever skill we are working on I put a star in the marker color of their choice. If the star changes they get a treat, if not they get a great job. No matter what they are being rewarded just not always with a treat.

To get them interested I colored frequently with the magic marker so they would get at least one treat a day for the first little while as their skills improve and as they begin to do better I will color every 2 or 3 lines. (we only practice 5-10 times daily depending on what they want to do. Practicing needs to be fun so always stop while it's still fun.) It encourages them to do their best on every line because they never know which one will be the magic line.