Goal Setting & Rewards
How do I motivate my child to read or do better in school?
It’s an important question! In the ideal world, every learner is self-motivated (or what we’d call intrinsic motivation—not needing outside encouragement to want to learn). But sometimes we have to practice skills to get there. You could compare it to showing up to work every morning. If a brunch and your favorite coffee is waiting for you when you walk through the doors, are you a little more excited to start the day? Sometimes our kids also need goals and rewards to keep them moving forward.
Three Essential Parts of Goal-Setting
The goal or reward must be…
1) Chosen by the child
2) Attainable for them & you
3) Clear & Consistent
I’ll give you an example of when I worked with a kindergartener named Esther on reading stamina. She was learning how to read by herself for the first time.
1) Chosen by the child— Esther really wanted to go to the Marbles Kids museum and was motivated to work for it.
2) This was attainable for both of us—something I could commit to and not regret later. (Other great goals might be a movie night with popcorn, a favorite dessert, a family outing, a new book.)
We decided on 15 minutes, which is a reasonable long-term reading goal for a kindergartener. Then we started where Esther could be 100% successful. This is KEY. Make it really easy for your kid at the beginning so they experience the joy of doing well and believe they can do it. On the first day, Esther only read one minute. We celebrated that.
3) Consistent—Each day, we added 1-2 minutes. Whenever she had trouble focusing, we stopped increasing the minutes and just focused on doing well in that time frame. What mattered was that she continued to feel like she could do it and not be discouraged. After about a month, she reached 15 minutes and had the best time at the museum.
Esther and Ezra painting at the kids museum
Even better—the goal-setting worked! Now Esther reads by herself every day for fifteen minutes without needing help.
Keep it visual!
It really helps to track your child’s progress with something you both can see, like a sticker chart. Put it on the fridge or keep it in a reading folder where you won’t lose it. Here’s the reading stamina chart we used. Every time Esther read another minute, she colored it in. That simple act of ownership and seeing her progress excited her.
A chart also keeps the goal clear for the adult and child. Esther always knew what she was working towards and how she could get there.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Daily-5-Stamina-Chart-1471475?st=0ba044ac02ad50b99209087cc5b18924. *A polished chart like this one is nice, but something you write on a piece of paper works just as well! Don’t overthink it :)
Your child might also like putting marbles in a jar or coins in a piggy bank every time they get closer to their goal.
You can apply these steps/concepts to any kind of goal-setting, such as behavior, chores, and finishing homework. It will look different for each child, home, and age. For more ideas, you can search teachers pay teachers: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/browse?search=reward%20charts.
Hope that helps!
