For teachers and pupils alike, celebrating success is intrinsically linked to motivation and engagement. Celebration is often a key factor behind what drives intrinsic motivation, confidence, and a positive culture both in the classroom and across the school. Furthermore, it is no surprise that research has shown pupils who are motivated and engaged in their learning, tend to perform considerably higher academically than disengaged students. (Fredericks et al., 2004)
As you implement Lexia across your school, it is essential to ensure that your colleagues and students are engaged by finding ways to motivate them, recognising their efforts, and celebrating their achievements. In this guide, we outline some practical ways to use celebration to motivate and engage both school staff and students, recognising success and creating a positive culture surrounding Lexia in your school.
Utilise your school’s newsletter and social media platform.
If your school has a regular newsletter or social media platform, consider incorporating some Lexia news with some of the following ideas:
- Teacher and Student Spotlights – Share success stories of individual pupils or even whole classes that have made significant progress on Lexia. Use myLexia data to recognise when pupils and classes meet major milestones for Lexia usage and progress to keep them working hard on their Lexia goals.
- Make Success Visible – Inspire and encourage your students by using images and videos highlighting the effort that your pupils and colleagues have put into Lexia to achieve their goals.
- Include interviews – Encourage students and teachers to share their experiences with Lexia. This helps students and teachers connect with one another, share best practice, and help build a community of support around the use of Lexia.
Tweet image used with permission from Holy Spirit Catholic Primary (@HolySpiritWA9)
Plan School Events
Set aside time during the academic year to recognise and celebrate success. This could occur regularly as part of school routine or take place as a special event at the end of each term or the academic year.
Awards Ceremony
If your school has a regular award ceremony or celebration assembly, consider utilising some of this time to celebrate and acknowledge Lexia success! Present certificates, medals, vouchers or trophies to highlight special achievements with Lexia such as completing levels or the whole program!
Create Lexia Traditions
If your students would prefer their success to be acknowledged more privately, plan regular, smaller events into the school week for pupils to engage with and celebrate Lexia. For example, a Lexia Lunch can be a great way to recognise pupil achievement while providing additional opportunities to engage with the program.
Harness the Positive Power of Displays
Creating a celebratory learning environment can be a powerful way to positive impact Lexia engagement and promote a growth mindset in your school.
Highlight progress and achievement in shared spaces.
Set up a Lexia bulletin board or display in the corridor or hall to highlight achievements across the school. Quite often, some friendly competitive elements such as a leader board or tracker can be a natural motivator for both students and class teachers. Alternatively, you could take a collaborative approach with an art display that students can add to when they complete Lexia levels.
Display myLexia data and student’s work
Boost your displays with myLexia data. Use graphics, leader boards and electronic displays to highlight classes and pupils that have met weekly usage, reached the next level or even completed additional work with a Lexia Skill Builder!
Build Celebratory School Routines
Incorporating celebrations into school routines can help both teachers and pupils feel invested and united in working towards a shared goal of literacy success with Lexia.
Research indicates that meeting pupils’ needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness is key in motivating them to achieve positive outcomes. (Dweck, 2015; Kaplan, Middleton, Urdan, & Migdley, 2002; Ryan & Deci, 2016)
Autonomy
Pupils need to have agency and autonomy over their learning. This means that they should be able to make decision about how the work towards their academic goals. Consider how you could build autonomy into your Lexia sessions, such as allowing students to set their own Lexia goals or enabling them to select the strand they want to work in on a given session.
Competence
Pupils need to feel effective, capable and successful when tackling learning challenges. Ensure all students receive positive feedback and praise from their teachers and that they know the purpose of engaging with Lexia. Encouraging student peers in encouraging each other’s achievements can also be a powerful way for pupils to recognise their success.
Relatedness
Pupils need meaningful learning experiences that connect them to their school community and that are relevant to their aspirations and interests. Ensure that your Lexia sessions include engagement and discussion among peers and that meaningful connections are made between what they are learning and pupils’ personal and academic goals.
Use Rewards and Incentives
Rewards and incentives can vary between age groups, but all can provide more tangible ways to acknowledge success with Lexia. Here are some tips for building these into your schools Lexia implementation.
Contents and competitions
Use competitions to boost Lexia use and celebrate success further. A class or school-wide competition can provide an opportunity for teachers and students to challenge themselves and take action towards their goals. (Image used with permission from Oasis Academy Leesbrook)
Integrate Lexia into your School or Classroom reward systems.
Like with any positive behaviour in school, use school reward systems to encourage habits that lead to Lexia success. For examples, if you have a school points-based system, points could be awarded for Lexia usage, unit and skill progress and other literacy accomplishments.
Provide extra privileges and rewards (just for Lexia)
You can further personalise rewards and privileges for your Lexia pupils, such as:
- Extra lunch or break time.
- Lunch queue passes.
- Special school trips.
- Raffles and prize draws.
Tip:
Give students the chance to choose the kind of reward and incentive they would like. You might be surprised by their creative ideas that cost very little or nothing at all!
Conclusion
Implementing small practical ways to celebrate achievement can be one of the most impactful ways to build intrinsic motivation, engagement and most importantly, literacy success. If you need any support in formulating your Lexia Implementation Plan, reach out to our team on 0191 482 1939 or by email at customercare@lexiauk.co.uk.
