reward system for junior high speech therapy students

Looking for a way to motivate your older students? Are your students sick of traditional sticker charts? 

When I started working in the junior high setting with 6th-8th grade students, I quickly realized that it was difficult for this age group to stay attentive to therapy tasks and they were unmotivated to show up to their scheduled sessions. 

My second year in this setting, I began implementing hole punch reward cards and the results were pretty immediate. I saw that this was a motivating reward for this age group and an incentive to put forth an effort in the therapy setting. Don't get me wrong- there was a lot of trial and error with this system, but I finally found an effective way to utilize it. Not only was it motivating for my current case load, but it was an automatic buy in for the students I was screening or who were new to speech. 

I have these displayed in my therapy room hanging on hooks based on grade level. I also have a bucket hanging above the cards with the hole puncher. The students are 100% responsible for their cards and remembering to punch it before they leave.  I have had instances where students cheat and add more hole punches than they deserve. In these cases, they lose hole punches for the following week. 
This system is also great for students with troubling behaviors. I have used their hole punches as a consequence and some students even lost their hole punches for an entire school year! 

how the system works:

Students can ultimately earn 2 hole punches per session, sometimes 3 if they are undergoing an evaluation. 
How to receive hole punches:

• 1 hole punch when they show up on time to their scheduled session without me having to go hunt them down
• An additional hole punch for attending to therapy tasks and working hard
• If I can tell a student struggles with attention to standardized testing, I reward them with additional hole punches for motivation purposes

Once their card is full:

• They rip it off the ring and I enter their points into a google sheet (I will show you this below)
• Students are encouraged to save cards in their "speech bank" to earn larger prizes. ​

As you can see from the picture above, my students collect cards to earn larger prizes.

1 card: Kid cash-- which is our schoolwide behavior incentive. Kid cash is submitted into school wide raffles where they earn pizza parties, subway lunches, etc. We have raffles every quarter.
3 cards: 15-20 minutes of iPad time-- no one has cashed in on this one haha
5 cards: Donut or chips-- I go through the drive thru at Dunkin Donuts and spend 99 cents on a donut or they choose a bag of chips from my drawer
8 cards: Pizza- I typically order a $5 hot and ready pizza from Little Caesars and they can invite 2 friends to join them for lunch 
10 cards: Subway lunch-- I have not had anyone earn this prize yet! 

As I mentioned earlier, there was a lot of trial and error when creating this system. When I first started utilizing this, I allowed students to win a pizza party after just 5 cards and donuts and chips after 3 cards. I was spending a fortune on pizzas! Now that I have implemented this new reward menu, I have not had to spend any money so far this year! Everyone is motivated by the hefty prizes like pizza and subway, which are taking longer to achieve! 

I used to utilize scratch off lottery tickets as a reward after they filled out one card. My lottery tickets would have prizes such as; extra day of speech, bring a friend to speech, special request, listen to music in speech, etc. I have those for free in my store if you are interested in implementing those! 

Your incentives obviously do not have to be food related, but I just find that food prizes are a huge motivator for this age group. I also realize that not everyone is allowed to bring food into their school. 

how to keep track of rewards

I personally use a google sheet because I know that I won't misplace it and there is no way that a student can access it to add extra points. 

If you would like this google sheet to track your student's progress click here. Please make sure you choose "File" and "Make a copy" before inputting your student information. 

Want your own punch cards? 

Find the cards pictured above for free in my store! 
I also have Chicago Themed punch cards for free as well! 

Do you have any other ideas on how to implement this system? Comment below :)